How about, "Too rich for me!"

Some anachronistic laughs seem required. Dialect jokes pretty much demand being transmogrified into local variants with equivalent cultural baggage.

Admittedly, that doesn't excuse some versions of Lysistrata ...

---L.

Hmm.. that tourasshai sounds like a good response to those people who accost you at store entrances, shouting irasshai. But I suppose it would go right over their heads.

Now pull my finger.

BTW, can we see a kanji for tourashai? I can't raise any real hits on Google.

> "Too rich for me!"

Ashamed to admit that I don't get it.

Tōrasshai is just 通らっしゃい, yo. (So, とお not とう, that might be throwing you off.)

LNH: Yeah, I guess the issue is that I feel this is sort of in limbo -- you need the cultural knowledge of what a komuso is and does to even come close to getting it. I could have added that into the wife's last line, but then that would have been even heavier and further from the original...

You're too modest. There's anachronism involved, but the laugh isn't owed to the anachronism, but to the joke itself. To get which requires some specialized knowledge, sure, but that's kind of true of the original, too, right? So you've made the joke in translation work in approximately the same way it works in the original, and you've made it work in colloquial English to boot. In my book, that's good translation.

What's the item at the end of the Hamlet-reference line? does /\=ハ? Looks like a weird carrot for me.

Apologies - I need a less common nom d'comment. Me and the above poster are one and the same.

MMT: I think it’s the horizontal representation of the vertical word-repeat symbol (kunojiten). So it’s an old-fashioned (and charming) way of writing 当り当り。　Not nearly as cool as in vertical text.

Yep, that's it. I think that the intended repetition here is とんだ当たりとんだ当たり.

Yeah, that tou vs too problem is why I prefer Hepburn romanization instead of a macron that can be ambiguous.

But it doesn't work for words whose word-images in Latin letters we have already internalized; Kyouto, gyouza, shougun feel wronger than Kyōto, gyōza, shōgun. In some cases, like Noh, a non-standard romanization has such momentum as a word-image that Nō feels pedantic and Nou totally off.

(trying to justify my irrational preference for macrons/circumflexes)

In this case, though, Hepburn would still use the macron -- you mean Wapuro, right? I can see that. I guess it comes down to whether you want the romanization to represent pronunciation (in which case you want the first part of "Tōkyō" 東京 to be different from "tou" 問う) or kana (in which case you want them to be the same, but distinct from the start of "toorasshai" 通らっしゃい).

Let's all just agree that people who write "jya" should be pushed off a cliff.

So when did you find out about this other' book coming out the same day as yours? (of soruce I'm referring to the Just do it book, which only goes for 101 days which is really featherweight compared to you and Brad!)Seems People wrote columns on them and just added y'all in a box. And having both couples on the couch on the Today show seemed unfair to all. (though you did look stunning on the end of the couch!)I enjoyed both interviews (Today and the View can you believe I Tivo'd the freakin' VIEW??? THAT, my friends, is a first!) however I did dislike how the View gals seemed to try to get questions in that undermined the spirit of the gift. Asking Brad about orgasms was just wrong.But all in all, I hope the appearances gave you two enough exposure that the books will get in folks hands (or on their Kindles .can you believe you are published on the Kindle??) so that they can experience your book for themselves. There is SO much more to your book than just the gift. I love all the insight and let me say right now: You are TOTALLY right about all things Christmas! It is as if you and I were raised by the same parents!

NcqA3i gciunttznsiq