She's Faking It!

I hear this all the time, but now it has extra relevance in Japan. The #1 word for 2007 has been named as 偽 which translates as "FAKE". Over the last year, several companies have defrauded the public via mislabelling schemes including:

"Now-defunct Hokkaido meat processor Meat Hope Co., Sapporo-based chocolate cookie maker Ishiya Trading Co., time-honored sweets makers Akafuku Co. and Ofuku Mochi Honke Y.K. in Ise, Mie Prefecture, and chicken processor Hinaidori K.K. in Akita Prefecture all engaged in false-labeling scams." (from a Japan Times article.)

You never know if you're going to bite off more than you can chew over here!

I coined a new Japanese term today, "スド須藤". Pronounced as "sudo-sudo" it means a fake name or pseudonym. Such as Mark Twain is the pseudonym of Samuel Clemens or 乱歩 江戸川 (Edogawa Ranpo) is the
スド須藤 of 平井 太郎 (Hirai Taro). Edogawa Ranpo (or the Japanese Edgar Allen Poe) is a Japanese author who wrote these quirky mysteries from the 20s to the 50s, my favourite story being "The Human Chair".

In other wordy news, "w00t" has taken Merriam-Webster's word of the year, but I don't give a hoot about that!