Japanese New Words

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ROMANSH SPOKEN HERE

    Greetings from St. Moritz.  I just had an eight-hour ride on the Glacier Express (pronounced glassy-er--supposedly because you see them, not because the service is slow).
    Congratulations to Jesse.  What slang baby names were close choices?

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JAPANESE NEW WORDS

   This is from the International Herald Tribune, 15 September 1999, pg. 4, cols. 1-2 (see also their web site www.iht.com):

_What's the Good Word?_
_In Japan, 6,000 Are Coined Every Year_
(...)  More than 6,000 words and phrases are added to the language each year--most of them short-lived--in a stream so rapid that people complain they often cannot fathom what is being said.
(...)  Many of the words are in English, often shortened and always pronounced according to the Japanese syllabic alphabet, which does not include, for example, "th" or any single consonant except "n."
     The Japanese words derived from English are not always recognizable.
     "Game" is from _geimu_, "animation" is _anime_.  From _poketo_ (pocket) and _monsuta_ (monster) the Japanese took poke and mon to make, of course, _Pokemon._
(Fumio Inoue, a professor of social linguistics at Tokyo University of Foregin Studies, is the only professor quoted--ed.)

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GRANNY CAM

   Today's USA TODAY has a story about "granny cams"--cameras in nursing homes to record possible abuse or mistreatment of patients.  I don't know if Barnhart has this--it's not handy in St. Moritz.