Pedro Kibe is rolling in his grave

2006-07-19

Pedro Kibe is rolling in his grave

One can be spoon-fed strawberry ice-cream by only so many ersatz maids before such fleeting pleasures pall. In their place rises an emptiness, a melancholy, a primal longing for a more meaningful, spiritual existence. Fear not. When that time comes, there is a place you can turn: Akihabara St Grace Court. Yes, it is a nun cafe. Well, technically, it's probably a "religious sister" cafe at best, but you get the idea.

Pictures. (Funny how the standard girly hand-clasps blur so easily into imitation prayer.) Blog. (With helpful note: "This establishment is an amusement cafe taking churches and [religious] sisters as its theme, and not an actual religious group." Just in case you were wondering whether maybe the Dominicans had changed their stance on miniskirts and thigh-high stockings.)

According to Akiba Blog, instead of "Welcome home, master," they say "O, lost and wandering lamb! Welcome to Grace Court!" (迷える子羊よ　ようこそグレースコートへ) (Matt. 18:12)

Popularity factor: 6

Anonymous:

Why is 迷う in the potential form? Why not 迷っている?

Leonardo Boiko:

Maybe it's the passive ("you lamb who was lost"), or maybe just out of politeness? I'd think 迷った子羊...

Anonymous:

Nun cafes - I can't see anybody getting into the habit.

Matt:

Well, the immediate reason it's 迷える子羊 is because in this particular context-niche, 迷える子羊 is a specialized fragment that has survived intact through language change rendering it obsolete (kind of like "Thou shalt not" in English)

Morphologically, I _think_ it's an example of CJ り (very similar to たり), corresponding to た and/or ている in Modern Japanese.

Anonymous: We'll have nun of that around here, irresisterble as it may be.

Azuma:

I'm pretty sure you're right about the ri. That was my first thought when I read it somewhere, somewhen before. I would take it as a perfect "O little lamb who hath strayed"

As evidence that this isn't so weird, I finished playing Final Fantasy XII about a month ago, and the names for a lot of the map segments were very Classical Japanese. Not to claim that kids really understand all the grammar involved, but I bet they get it on a certain level. There was a drama a bit back called "愛し人", using the 連体形 of the aspectual き, and you see the old-school adjectival き pretty often. 美しき人and so on.

Leonardo Boiko:

I wish there was some web grammar resource listing those classical Japanese quirks. Maybe it would make it easier to listen to Onmyou-za...

2006-07-19