Talk:Dajare

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[edit] Re: merge proposal

While I tend to lean toward merging regional synonyms if they are stubby, considering the length of this, I think it wouldn't fit very well in pun. Especially since other languages do not have their own section there. It would make more sense to add a short summary of it there and link this as the main article. I see no reason why we can't have separate articles on puns and Japanese puns, just as we have separate articles on beer and Japanese beer. Dforest 07:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Also see toilet and Japanese toilet - the latter is a featured article. Dforest 09:03, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that the difference between this article and Japanese toilet is that toilets in Japan (or at least, some toilets in Japan) are noticeably different from those found elsewhere, whereas puns are universal and there's nothing particularly special about Japanese puns compared to French, German or Chinese ones. I would propose that a section on 'puns in non-English languages' be added to pun, mentioning which languages they are common in and giving a couple of examples and some more information.

As for the length, all of the actual information in the article is in the second paragraph (puns are popular in Japan, they are commonly used in advertising, and they are associated with old men). The rest of the article either replicates pun or gives example jokes which I don't think are needed as the other article already has plenty of examples.

Anyway, that's why I put the merge tag, so people could reply and discuss this. Ironfrost 05:34, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that it would be a disservice to merge this and delete the examples of the puns. They give a bit of insight to the language and humor. Some of the can go (モルダーはすっかり忘れた, for example.) But to get rid of all the puns is like serving lemonaid without sugar. I also think that this article can be expanded upon a bit from some of the Japanese article, though not much. Might a "see also" be better. --Kunzite 03:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

When I came across the article in it's original form (it was horrible) I thought for a bit if it really deserved it's own page or not. I couldn't think of a clear answer then, so I just expanded it for the time being to give a better basis for existance. I don't want it to be deleted—I think that the major differences in how grammar and spelling work in the Japanese language make forming puns a rather different process, and they tend not only to be much more smartly created than they are in English, but they are so popular and commonly used (in all situations), it seems almost shameful to replace dajare with an article about something like puns which are such a relatively minor part of the English language. That's what I thought anyway.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  04:14, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

There was an edit conflict - I wrote the following before Freshgavin posted, and I haven't read his expansions to the article yet. I'll reply again in a couple of minutes, but I'll post this anyway:

There would still be plenty of examples to illustrate the subject - pun has quite a few examples in English, and I still don't think there's any difference between dajare and puns, so reading 'pun' would give a better overview of the concept.

From looking at the Japanese article there doesn't seem to be much content that can expand this article - apart from the examples and 'puns in non-Japanese languages' section, there are only two paragraphs of text, and from what I can tell (my Japanese is terrible), these seem to be more about puns in general than specific to Japan. Ironfrost 04:26, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Replying now to Freshgavin - although it's true that the Japanese language is easier to form puns in than English, the way that the puns are formed isn't really all that different. Dajare still means 'treating homonyms as synonyms', it's just that Japanese has a lot more homonyms. Also, I think that to properly understand the concept you need to have an overview of how they work linguistically, and to explain that here would involve repeating a lot of the content in the 'pun' article. Ironfrost 04:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that by definition they are exactly the same thing. I just feel with a lot of international topics there is justification to separate the articles to direct them to different interest groups. Heck, it could be easily argued that my article owarai only warrants a redirect to comedy, or at the very best Japanese comedy, but I feel that by putting articles at dajare and owarai avoids a lot of the international systematic bias that plagues wiki.
As for the number of examples in the article, I have no problem with them being deleted honestly. A lot of the sources I've found like to separate the puns into a few types (sound-a-likes, double-meanings, etc.) but I didn't want to go into that much detail. I couldn't really decide which to keep or delete so I just left that up to someone else to do with a more neutral POV.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  07:29, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Another thing: it may sound silly but I kind of feel that dajare are a significant part of modern Japanese culture. They serve as a good example of the (often corny, nonsensical) Japanese sense of humor that influences Japan in numerous ways. The focus of the article could be changed to "puns in Japanese advertising", (if I could only find more usable images) or "puns in Japanese literature" (if only there were any sources) if it would make it any more legitimate. If the Japanese wiki was as chaotic and ginormous as the English one was, there would most certainly be an article called List of dajare used by Jun'ichiro Koizumi in Diet conferences or in TV addresses to the Emperor.
I hope you understand that I'm not trying to disagree with you, but rather just trying to explain what I think, which can often be a pretty difficult thing for me to do - -;;.  freshgavinΓΛĿЌ  07:42, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Even though I do not know Japanese (maybe some kanji because I am Chinese), I am opposed to merging. Instead of merging, we could add a section about dajare in puns and link it to this page. Bibliomaniac15 00:03, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Baad Joke

Just presuming.... this part is probably not encyclopedic...

"Accidentally" confusing the two similar jokes and switching the responses will produce a faint response (all the Japanese people listening will pretend to fall over) not dissimilar to the response you would get if you told the Why did the chicken cross the road joke wrong.

A bit iffy, I admit. Merging the two jokes is supposed to be considered an extremely cheezy joke unto itself, something you'd expect from a boke.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  11:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a major part of any humor, pointing out where the metahumor comes in. Like, y'know, a horse walked into a bar, so I bit him! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.122.208.51 (talk) 20:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Image - explanation?

I like the idea of having an image to go with the article--it cements the phenomenon, really--but I think an explanation of the dajare on the sign would be helpful to curious non-Japanese-speakers. -Gemtiger 03:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC) ai ni yuki koi wo shiro

Given that the explanation would be: 愛に雪、恋を白／会いに行き、恋をしろ(Love in the snow, make your love white/Go, meet, and love), I figured it was not only too long to fit into the caption, but not quite as entertaining as the examples provided below. That's not even a full explanation, there's multiple levels of dajare on that sign!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  11:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Could something like that be added to the Image:Dajare_love.jpg page? It's just a bit unsatisfying to have this image there without any explanation at all. -Gemtiger 02:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, done!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  05:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)