Re: Nanitozo

On Thu, 03 May 2007 07:25:08 +0900, John R. Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:

Sorry, Cindy. I often have problems because I am English. Irony is a
basic part of my culture, but Japanese and American people often do not
seem to realise that I am being ironic.

Humor is a very subtle concept even between people who share the same
native tongue and culture. That's why there are more unsuccessful
comedians than successful ones. Also, I guess that's why most of my word
games in either Japanese or English or both fall flat. (笑)

Tone of voice is one of the primary means of conveying humor. Since
Usenet, by its nature, does not transmit tone of voice, the use of
emoticons like :-) or <grin> is a common convention. I like to use (笑) as
I did above because this is a language group and I see it used a lot in
Japanese blogs as an emoticon just as (汗) is frequently used as an
equivalent of the English <whew!>.

Another emoticon is ^-^. Oops, that's an anime emoticon. We can't have
that. I've already been raked over the coals on more than one occasion by
contaminating this serious newsgroup with frivolous comments about anime
and manga. (笑) We wouldn't want another recurrence of that. (汗)

Phil Yff
.

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