Akemi’s English has vastly improved over the 6+ years (!) we’ve been together. Nevertheless, she’s still prone to the occasional Akemi-isms, those odd turns of phrase uniquely hers. I’ve covered them in past blog entries, everything from terms like “punching sweet” (super sweet) to descriptives like “tastes like old man’s pillow” (her take on the flavor of truffles) to words of wisdom like “Tokyo crows are very smart. They eat McDonald’s garbage and their brains get bigger!” (on the superior intelligence of Tokyo crows).
Here are a few more to add to the list:
brinkle: to blink
porkupintus: appendicitis
Something’s coming down with me!: I’m coming down with something!
You’re shrinking like a balloon ten days after birthday party!: You’ve lost weight!
grandma eyes: poor eyesight
miss and hit: hit and miss (If you attempt to correct her, she’ll always reply: “Same thing.”)
mooshy-mushy: squishy, semi-solid state usually used to describe the texture of those nut and syrup mash-ups vegan cafes attempt to pass off as “cookies”.
bricklyn style: architecturally, any building with a prevailing brick work structure
I do love ‘brinkle’ and ‘grandma eyes’. They’re both very descriptive, aren’t they?
I hope Akemi never loses her wonderful turns of phrase! They’re one of the things that make her such a delightful person.
Speaking of “grandma eyes”, did you ever wind up with the reading glasses?
She is just too adorable!
There is a logic to those phrases. Mooshy-mushy is very hard to say and it made me laugh when I read the definition (so true-those are pseudo-cookies). Very cool and Thanks for sharing them with us! 🙂
Drea: Prayers sent, fingers crossed, and salt over my shoulder for tomorrow.
I haven’t seen any updates on Narelle’s Ralph. That doesn’t seem like a good sign. If you’re out there Narelle, I’m sending big {{{Hugs}}} your way.
Lucy is very happy that my loud, fast moving son is going back to college tonight. 😉
Akemi makes me chuckle, thanks! She has a pretty good grasp of the lingo. And loved the towel hats of you both yesterday. Thanks for sharing all you do!
I think I’m going to start using “grandma eyes” to describe my slow creep toward stronger reading glasses. It sounds oddly soothing and I love it.
Don’t think I want to meet any Tokyo crows. By the way, that’s a great name for a rock band. Love Akemi’s isms!
@Tam Thanks! xo Spent most of the weekend ice dancing and some friends let me get in some flight time/practice in the their beech craft A36 today to help keep my mind off it. Albeit now that I’m home… am of course getting nervous again. I’ll just be happy to get it finally over with tomorrow.
Will update everyone via the office cell when its done and I recover from the anesthesia.
By the way: Tried to send hugs and good thoughts to Narelle and Ralphie on Twitter but seems she’s got her account in private/protected mode??
@Gforce: re: glasses. Akemi kept packing Joes reading glasses into his work bag daily – but he kept stubbornly refusing to wear them. Finally when he did Season 2’s 1st periscope he gave in and put them on. Don’t know why he had made such a big fuss about it before. They actually looked pretty good on him.
(though it probably didnt help matters that I had playfully teased him about it when he tried to sport invisible rims and facial gruff in his cookie monster hat pic).
Sending wishes of sweetest dreams and gentlest dreamers sighs
your way. xo
G’nite 🙂
I believe I am developing “grandpa eyes,” or is “grandma eyes” not gender specific? Yet I need not worry of being called such. So, Mooshy-Mushy is not Akemi answering the phone, then. (still trying to learn Japanese; and what little I know has proved to be helpful.) Guess I also need to start eating more McDonalds; does NRT count? Spent 7hours there yesterday. I had hoped to go downtown, but it was raining when I arrived in the morning.
Hoping to shrink my ballon soon. (Off topic but has she seen “Blazing Saddles?”)
Six years, Huh? Well here’s to 6 times more! A toast from my newly acquired bottle of Hibiki 12years whisky.
I’m with the rest… hope she never loses them. Well except appendicitis should she need to actually say she thinks she has an issue.
Wow 6 1/2 yrs? Time flying.
The shrinking balloon is great!! So descriptive! Akemi, you are a very creative woman, and your ‘isms’ are sometimes better than the traditional English idioms. Time to write a book!
das
okay. So here it is 2 am est and I cant sleep. On the upside, it means they wont have to use quite as much anesthesia to knock me out for the surgery in the morning, eh! 😀
I love Akemi-isms. Reminds me of a beautiful delightful boy I knew in childhood.
“Much too playful flip floppy dolphin”
This was him referring to me when I’d (flip-flop) go off on numerous long tangents in conversation before finally getting to the original point I intended.
He also referred to toasters as “bread stiffeners”. Albeit, I guess that kinda makes sense.
When you toast bread it transforms from soft & flexible to a stiffer state.
@chev yay! 🙂 Glad to hear Ivon isn’t ignoring ya anymore.
Finally found your twitter site and clicked to follow. Would have followed sooner albeit didn’t realize the Maryanne page was yours.
@pbmom Thanks. 🙂 And glad ya got to at least do something fun for your birthday!
PS: Have you watched the latest episode of Black Sails? OMG! I cant believe they killed off my favorite character!
So thankful you write these down for us. We can learn a lot from Akemi (and McDonald’s trash). I’m already dealing with ‘grandma eyes’ and hoping to avoid developing ‘great grandma eyes’.
Drea: Sounds like you have some great friends there! Sending {{{Hugs}}} that everything goes great today!
Thanks for sending good wishes to Narelle and I think her account is protected. Sorry I didn’t realize that. She posted an update about Ralph. Ralph had emergency surgery and they found a “screw, electrical lead and a plastic bag in his bowel.” 😯 The next 24 hours will be a waiting game to see if he perks up.
Ah, Tokyo crows are clever birdies, excessively so, I guess Makku trash is as good an explanation as any.
@Drea Thanks! Found you 😊 hehe yeah I have sooo many aliases. Sending some positive vibes your way… Hope all will be ok.
Chev
@Drea: Reading glasses never look good! NEVVVEERRR, I tells ya! 🙂 (I’m fighting the need for them myself – I can usually get by with just taking off my “far” glasses.)
I hope everything goes (or has gone by now) well today. Take care! And thanks for the sweet dreams wishes – I was actually awake until about 2am this morning. Ugh.
Oh, also today we’re having a big snowstorm. The day after the first day of Spring. So, yay.
I have grandma eyes…. Also I can’t find my reading glasses… There must be a phrase for that.
Cheers, Chev
Hahahha, i am officially a fan of Akemi-isms. 🙂 Love the “punching sweet”.
Yikes. Where did my post go?
@PBMom, same here, I clicked on pics and lost my literal train of thought. Akemi phrases remind me of Blade Runner Cityspeak and Belter slang on Expanse. Akemi is a trendsetting wordsmith.
I’m getting grandma eyes from binging Daredevil on Netflix. Every time I think I’m done with Netflix something pops up on my suggestions that entrances me into sitting unblinking into the wee hours.