The Book of Mansion Names 6

I haven't posted an entry in "TBOMN" for a while:





Further enlightenment will be available via the tag below.

Unfortunately Named Japanese Department Store Concessions #71

I don't know whether I should expect Japanese firms to check on the connotations of the English words they pick to name their businesses, but I do remember that car companies spend a lot of time now ensuring that their cars are dubbed with entirely fabricated names lest they accidentally call a car "shit-bucket" in Estonian or something. Perhaps these guys could have done a little more research...

The Greatest Company Name Ever

If you were thinking of starting a company, and if you were thinking of giving that company the greatest name ever... stop right there. It's already gone. Good people of the earth, I give you:

Driving Vicarious Execution

Sorry about the camera-phone picture, but I saw this baby while I was wandering through Kita 24 Jyo tonight and I had to get a record of it. I'd seen them driving around once before, when I was taking a taxi home from a club at around 4am and I'd dismissed the memory as a drunken hallucination. After all, what could it possibly mean? Driving Vicarious Execution? It's just random J-English non-sequiturs right?

Wrong! The company offers a designated driver service thing. Call them up when you're too hammered to steer and two guys come out, one of them drives you home in their little car, and the other one drives your car home for you. Now think about that monicker again and it all starts to fall into place.

Once again, Japan, I salute you.

The Book of Mansion Names 1

Alarm! New project commencing... now!

While the Japanese assimilation of parts of the English language is always fascinating, I don't always find the humourous mis-steps that result as "LOL-tastic" as some folks do. What's more interesting is what the words and phrases that are chosen say about the people, companies and purposes that they are connected to.

So probably the majority of Japanese appartment buildings (known as Mansions, which is in itself a nice way of describing a block of flats) are named in English, and are given names that connect, in the Japanese psyche, to concepts of safety, security, luxury and... classiness? Something like that. I've been meaning to do this for a while, and cycling home the other night I figured there was no time like right then! So here is the start of my collection of poignant and eyebrow-raising Japanese mass-dwelling names:




I hope eventually to have a huge flickr book, or possibly a huge coffee table book of these. You'll have to leaf through it and choose the name of the building in which you want to live, and it will tell you a deep and uncomfortable truth about yourself. Dare you gaze into "The Book of Mansion Names"?

Fine French Cuisine

Wandering around in Sapporo yesterday, I found what I assume is the greatest French Bistro(t) in the world:


Of course I can't bloody go there. If it turns out they don't serve the stuff it'll break my little heart.

Used Clothing Coward

Dammit. Yet another name I can't use when I open my emporium of joy. I guess Electronics Moron is still free. And Shoes Pervert.