I just found out that I’ve apparently become a verb.

Not in a very interesting way, unfortunately (such as, “I wanna jeff you all night long, baby“), but in a way that I suppose is uniquely Japanese.

You see, the language here can be difficult to pronounce at times (even for native speakers) and so it’s very common for words and phrases to be abbreviated, especially loan words from other languages as they tend not to follow the same sound system. For example, “sexual harrassment” is transliterated as sekushuaru harasumento, which I’m sure you can agree is quite a mouthful. Therefore people use “sekuhara” to describe the national workplace pastime.

Anyway, as the only native English speaker in my company, all English documents are proofread and revised by me before being sent out. I received an email by CC today written by the company translator about one assignment in which she wrote that the “jefuchekku” (”jeffcheck”) had been completed and she was submitting the final draft. I asked her about it, and apparently everyone in her office uses that term for my English checks (i.e., “Has this been jeffchecked?”).

Silly, I know, but I thought it was funny.

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Only one photo today — cute little Hello Kitty bouquets that I saw in Ginza on Saturday: