A famous Japanese school girl group "AKB48"
Japanese school girls have been creating urban languages continually and sometimes they become a social phenomenon. Today we would like to introduce you a commonly-used term “KY”. Although it is created by the Japanese high school girls, it is used everywhere in Japan today across the generations. If you ask a question to North American people what this term means, we are sure that most of them would answer “Is it K-Y Jelly?” that is well known as a sexual lubricant, a product from Johnson and Johnson.
Well the answer is “incorrect” and it has nothing to do with “K-Y Jelly”. KY’s “K” stands for “Kuuki” which means “air” and “Y” stands for “Yomenai” which means “cannot read”. In direct translation, it would become “one cannot read the air.” In fact, it is used to describe “a person who cannot sense the atmosphere” or “a person who cannot read between the lines.” It would be used in a sentence such as “He is such a KY. He always brings up trouble when all of us are having a great time” “The new Prime Minister Hatoyama should not become KY in foreign policy. It is not a cut and dry issue.” The unique part is that Roman alphabet is combined with Japanese. Japanese school girls are so creative that many urban languages like this are generated frequently.
We would like to introduce you two other urban languages.
“超ＳＷ”
“超＝Super, S＝Seikaku(personality), W＝Warui(bad)” that make it “One has a really bad personality.”
Sentence example: “My boss is 超ＳＷ.”
“MG5”
“M＝Maji(Really), G＝Gire(get mad), 5(5 seconds till)” that make it “5 seconds till one gets really mad.”
Sentence example: “That man was such an KY that I was MG5 and had a very hard time controlling myself.”