Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Mon, 16 Nov 1992 10:29:47 EST
From:         Rita Marie Rouvalis <rita@EFF.ORG>
Subject:      Godzilla
Comments: To: words-l@uga.cc.uga.edu

        This is just the sort of random strangeness I love to pass on.
Desperado is probably the one of if not the longest running electronic
publications, but has only been allowed out of DEC in the past couple
years.

Rita




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 DESPERADO, We Live in Times of Unprecedented Change


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1075 lines, including five in a limerick and six in haikus


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Powerful enough to suck prairie dogs from their holes, but gentle all the same.
Not an official publication.  Forward with daring and whimsy.  Circle the earth.
Should you rip something off from here,  be a sport and rip this header off too.
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From:   VAXUUM::KEEFE        "The whereabouts of my whereabouts"
To:     RAGMOP::T_PARMENTER
Subj:   fish vs automobiles -- sometimes the difference is not obvious


Re Godzilla in Desperado #3069,


Godzilla is indeed GOJIRA in Japanese, but I don't think he's named after a
bad-tempered guy named Gojira. It's written in katakana, meaning it's a foreign
or coined word. It's a combination of the English (and Japanese) word
"gorilla", and the Japanese word "kujira", meaning whale. "Whale-sized Gorilla
of the Sea" sort of thing. Like "Chicken of the Sea". As we all know canned
tuna is known by the English phrase "sea-chicken" in Japanese, derived from
that particular brand name of canned tuna.


Similarwise with Three Diamonds brand tuna sold in the US. Three Diamonds is
"Mitsubishi" in Japanese, but they translated it into English because it was
put on the market back when "Made in Japan" was associated with cheap, tinny
products. To this day, the brand name "Three Diamonds" sounds tinny, not
because it is Japanese, but because it's the brand name of the ultimate cheap
tinny product, a can of fish.


By the time Mitsubishi got around to selling cars in the US, "Made in Japan"
had cachet, so they left the name in Japanese. Plus they figured Americans
wouldn't buy a car if they knew it was made by a canned tunafish company,
"tunafish can" being not much more glamorous than "sardine can" in the
desirable-automobile-image department. Americans are still not accustomed to
the idea of companies like Mitsubishi that make everything from ground-up
squid-lip-based cat food to nuclear reactors and jet engines.


Ten years ago you could buy whale in little cans at the Japanese grocery,
available in the canned sea creature aisle, between the sea chicken and
the sea gorilla. According to Japanese pro-whalers, loss of canned whale from
the grocer's shelf would cause "irreparable harm to Japan's culinary
tradition." Rather like the loss of Spam might be to America's culinary
tradition. Intolerable! So, I can see their point of view. On the other hand,
it all kind of tastes like sea-chicken.


The -RA suffix became a monster naming convention:


            GOJIRA       (GO-rilla + ku-JIRA)
            GAMERA       (Game/kame = turtle)
            GIDOURA      (Ghidra in English. Gidou = in orbit)
            KINGIDOURA   (Golden Ghidra)
            MINIRA       (Gojira's son)
            MOSURA       (Mothra in English. Moth + ra)


(The above list courtesy of the gang in the NIHONGO notes conference. The gang
in this case being me and one Japanese guy, who I'm sure would rather remain
nameless.)


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        But, he wondered, how did the people who were being menaced
        actually figure out that the giant pterodactyloid hoo-ha that was
        smashing through their power lines and eating their tanks was named
        "Rodan"?  The creature was inarticulate, capable of sound-effects
        only, and was an utterly new phenomenon that everyone was
        mystified by, and yet at no point in the movie did anyone ever say
        "Let's call it Rodan|Gojira|Godzilla|Mothra."  These are not
        common names.  There seems to have been some sort of universal
        mental transmission that suddenly caused people running screaming
        down the street to shout "Ghidra! Ghidra!" and headlines to sprout
        "Gamera Eats City!"


        Did you know, by the way, that Dr. West of Dr. West's Medicine Show
        & Junk Band, auteur of "The Eggplant that Ate Chicago" was the
        immortal Norman Greenbaum, auteur of "Spirit in the Sky"?


                He came from outer space, lookin for somethin to eat,
                He landed in Chicago.  He thought Chicago was a treat.
                (It was sweet; it was just like sugar).


        Yet another hero tragically and unjustly excluded from the
        Rock&Roll Hall of Fame.