Spotting a Japanese masochist
A recent survey from goo Ranking looked at a word from English (a letter, actually) that has lost something in translation. The letter is M (for masochist), but as you will see from this survey of what aspects of someone’s character makes people think they might be M, for both women and men, it could just as easily be M for meek. Note that S, which appears in the answers below, is for sadist.
Demographics
Over the 23rd and 24th of August 2010 1,127 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.3% of the sample were female, 11.7% in their teens, 16.5% in their twenties, 29.0% in their thirties, 23.2% in their forties, 10.9% in their fifties, and 8.7% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.
Another popular survey translation of mine on fetishes also illustrates the loss in translation.
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