Re: Wikipedia's "List of English words of Japanese origin"

In the faraway land of sci.lang.japan, Louise Bremner
<dame_zumari@xxxxxxxxx> said:
><jwb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Louise Bremner <dame_zumari@xxxxxxxxx> dixit:
>> >John J. Chew III <jjchew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> >> SATSUMA*SATSUMAS n a variety of orange
>>
>> >Yup. (But I thought it was Britgo only....)
>>
>> Here "Satsuma" is a variety of plum.
>
>The story goes that shortly after Japan was opened up to the rest of the
>world, one of the first refrigerated ships docked at Nagasaki. A smart
>lad from the Satsuma region crated up some mikan and loaded them onto
>the ship. If there was any documentation with the shipment, it got lost,
>so when these crates arrived in London, there was nothing to identify
>them but incomprehensible "chicken tracks" on their sides together with
>one word in Romaji: Satsuma. So the dockers broke open a crate and
>decided that "Satsuma" (pronounced "satSOOOma") was the Japanese word
>for those delicious little seedless tangerines.
>
>But how the heck did a variety of plum get to be called Satsuma?


The story goes that shortly after Japan was opened up to the rest of the
world, one of the first refrigerated ships docked at Nagasaki. A smart
lad from the Satsuma region crated up some plums and loaded them onto
the ship. If there was any documentation with the shipment, it got lost,
so when these crates arrived in Australia, there was nothing to identify
them but incomprehensible "chicken tracks" on their sides together with
one word in Romaji: Satsuma. So the dockers broke open a crate and
decided that "Satsuma" was the Japanese word for those delicious plums.


I could have probably put this more concisely by just saying META(AOL!).

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Wikipedias "List of English words of Japanese origin"
    ... >The story goes that shortly after Japan was opened up to the rest of the ... one of the first refrigerated ships docked at Nagasaki. ... >one word in Romaji: Satsuma. ... I found one page saying the horticultualist Luther Burbank introduced ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • Re: Wikipedias "List of English words of Japanese origin"
    ... > Here "Satsuma" is a variety of plum. ... one of the first refrigerated ships docked at Nagasaki. ... But how the heck did a variety of plum get to be called Satsuma? ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
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