A bushel of buzzwords from Japan; the advent of phoneticization
Below are two lists of nominations for Japanese buzzword of the year. Each has 30 entries, and from each list one will be chosen as the respective winner. Since the two lists are already quite long and rich, I will keep my own comments (mostly at the bottom and focusing on phoneticization) to a minimum.
"From cat memes to Olympians with too much rizz, these are Japan's 2024 buzzword nominations"
The topics nominated for this year’s buzzwords of the year ranged from new banknotes and Olympian quips to political scandals and rice shortages. By Yukana Inoue, The Japan Times (Nov 5, 2024)
Japan's 2024 buzzword nominations focused on money and the Paris Olympics, according to a list of nominations released by the organizer of the annual event Tuesday.
News on “uragane mondai” (slush fund scandal) dominated headlines this year after Liberal Democratic Party factions were found to be underreporting the sales of fundraising party tickets.
Other money-related terms included “shin shihei” (new banknotes) — the country recently redesigned the ¥10,000, ¥5,000 and ¥1,000 notes for the first time in 20 years — and “shin NISA” (new NISA investments), a tax-exempt investment program launched this year that aims to entice people to move money from savings to investments. NISA stands for the Nippon Individual Savings Account.
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