Hurricanes and Typhoons

Red Cross volunteers and Japanese students can be seen on the sidewalks these days collecting money for the American Hurrican victims. As an American, it's always a little weird to see this, as if America was some poor 3rd world country. The only other time I saw Japanese students collecting money for America was after 9-11.

A few months ago I wrote about my tendency to mix up similar sounding Japanese words. Of course phenomenon works in reverse as well. For instance, you wouldn’t believe the amount of Japanese people who are unable to tell the difference between “Mississippi” and “Michigan.” I am constantly being asked if my home and family are ok during the hurricane.

Another frequent topic of discussion is the American custom of naming hurricanes, which the Japanese find endlessly amusing. In Japan, typhoons are identified by number, not name.

I’ve witnessed a few Japanese teachers tell their classrooms that Americans believe the fury of a woman is the same as the fury of a hurricane, so Americans name all their hurricanes after women.

I’m not sure if that’s true or not. I at least try and make the small correction that some women did complain to the National Weather Service, and now the hurricanes alternate between men’s names and women’s names.

Again, the Japanese find this very funny. “So someday there could be a hurricane named Joel?” someone asked me. Yeah, theoretically, I answered.

“Oh no! Run! Joel is coming!” my Japanese friend said, imitating how bizarre he thought the whole idea was.

Right now in Japan, we are currently in the midst of typhoon 14. It’s not a huge deal. Japan has hurricanes come through all the time, and, at least in my area, they are seldom very dangerous. I didn’t leave my windows open this year, and I’ve been staying in my apartment during the evening, so I’ve been all right so far.

School classes were cancelled on Wednesday because of the typhoon. We teachers still had to report into work though. I just sat at my desk all day doing things like writing this blog.

(If you are looking for more information on the Typhoon, as usual Chris' blog is better than mine. Here is a Typhoon weather map, and here is a picture, and he's even got a movie up here).

I suppose some of you are probably wondering: “What’s the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon anyway?”

I’ve often wondered the same thing. I’ve long suspected that it was just a different word for the same phenomenon, but never bothered to look it up.

I was in class the other day, and the Japanese teacher said, “Why don’t you tell the students what the difference is between a hurricane and a typhoon.”

And I was like “Um…I don’t know.”

At this point the Japanese teacher jumped in and told the class that the phenomenon is the same, but the word depends on what ocean it comes from. Apparently if it comes from the Atlantic Ocean, it is a hurricane. If it’s from the pacific, it’s a typhoon. And I think cyclone is from the Indian Ocean, although the teacher wasn’t 100% on this last one. So, feel free to use this info to impress friends at your next party.

And here’s another bit of useless trivia to impress friends with: typhoon comes from the Japanese word “taifu”, meaning “great wind”, and, along with “tsunami” is one of the few Japanese words that has become commonly used in English.

There are thousands of English words that have become Japonized and are now in common use in the Japanese language, but very few words have gone the other way. In fact, if we exclude all the nouns that refer solely to elements of Japanese culture (karate, judo, sushi, karaoke, kimono, kamikaze et cetera), then the only Japanese words that have crossed into English are the aforementioned “typhoon”, “tsunami”, and “head honcho” from the Japanese “hancho” meaning “group leader”. (And “banzars” if you’re Australian, which apparently Australian POWs picked up from the Japanese “banzai” during World War II).

Or am I overlooking something? Feel free to write in if you can think of something else.

Link of the Day
Speaking of words…
I’m not a linguist, and my interest lie elsewhere, but every once and a while you come across a word with a really fascinating etymology.

For instance, the word “OK.” It’s considered to be the most successful of all Americanisms, and not only invaded other English speaking countries, but hundreds of other languages as well. For instance, the Americans invading Japan during the war found that the word “OK” was already in common use among the Japanese. And “OK” was the fourth word said on the moon.
And the origins of OK? It is from a mock rustic spelling of “Oll Korrect”, popularized during the American Presidential campaign of 1840. Read more here.