May Day Basketcase

So, brave readers, tommorrow is the first day of golden week, so I'm gonna be off getting plastered somewhere and what not. I'll be back to share the further adventures of GAIJINMAN!!!!!! in about a week.

I first saw Diane Kichijitsu perform last July while Sylwia was here, shortly before returning for my entirely unnecessary stay in Ann Arbor. English rakugo (comedic storytelling) is not exactly a new thing, but it is odd that a Liverpudlian would take it up and become so popular. Rakugo for it's (weak) humor mostly relies on bad puns and addressing people improperly with honorific forms. Diane is no exception but in fact beats you over the head with the rule.

Her new lastname, 吉日, literally means "lucky day," which is a multilingual pun on her first name, which in katakana becomes homophonous with the word 大安, an annotation used on Japanese calendars to mark an auspicious day. This is at the heart of her schtick. Her performances are usually half English, half Japanese, and almost always involve some foreigner having difficulties navigating Japanese society. So, in the English act, a Brit arrives at Kansai International and is shown around by a Japanese friend. The Brit wants to learn a few Japanese words but has trouble making out the pronunciation. Example, if someone thanks you, it's proper to respond "dou itashimashite" which the Japanese friend turns into "don't touch my moustache" for the sake of our hapless Brit.

Similarly, American pilots were taught to yell "mayday mayday mayday" if they were ever to bail out over that great chunk of rock we call Europe (because apparently everyone speaks French?). Apparently this is supposed to be an imperative derived from the verb m'aider. Though from what I know m'aidez wouldn't be grammatically correct. So basically, Americans are so dumb that we have to learn a bastardized method of pronouncing bastardized French. Hurray for US!

However, alternatively, moreover, in opposition to the previous statement, though, I'd like to add that even rote observation of the rules can be taken too far.

N.B. As it turns out the Wikipedia article on katakana was incorrect in several fundamental ways, so I changed all of the most glaring errors. Anymore and I would have had to rewrite the whole damn thing. Stupid internet.