NOTE:

Okay, so it's a dumb joke. Wabei Translation is not a company, much less a crowd. It's just a guy (John Gardner of Glen Burnie, the Cultural Hub of Western Civilization and the armpit of Anne Arundel) who translates Japanese patents and occasional magazine and newspaper articles into English, and pays a surprising proportion of the proceeds for income tax, Medicare, and Social Security. He also has a day job.

True Confession: The author of this page has used the first person pronoun repeatedly. However, he is the last person to seek anonymity of that sort-- his name is John Gardner, and he is also known as "Doug" and "hey, you" to his wife and fellow workers, respectively. In addition to (and through the considerable efforts of) Carol, the above mentioned wife, he has three beautiful daughters (out of three), whose photographs he chooses not to post here for reasons that are beyond the scope of this course.

So here's the joke. It is common to use the term Wa for things Japanese; Japanese food is washoku, Japanese rooms are washitsu, and Japanese clothes are gofuku (since the styles are from Wu China-- that's a bad example, I guess). Ei is used for English stuff, such as Eihou for English law, Eika for British currency, and of course Eigo for the English language.On the other hand, Nichi refers to Japan as a country (Nisshin sensou = Sino-Japanese war; hounichi = visit to Japan etc). Bei refers to the United States as a country (Beizai = American timber; hanBei = anti-American).

Are you following this? If America had a language, translations from Japanese to American would be described as Wabei. Have you ever noticed how the more you explain something, the funnier it gets?

Incidentally, have you ever heard of the three old men who went to Wembley? (As it happens, the Great Western Railway which carries passengers from Cheltenham Spa to Paddington Station passes a little to the south of Wembley, not through it. And so I haven't been able to see how often the incident described occurs in real life.)

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