In honor of the coming era

外交辞令
gai.kou.ji.rei

Literally: outside – mix – word – decree

Alternately: Tact and flattery. Phrasing a message to most please the listener, or going out of your way to praise and compliment them, without any sincere intent beyond the desire to get on their good side. At best, this refers to diplomatic turns of phrase; at worst, to shameless brown-nosing.

Notes: Synonymous phrases include the closely-related 社交辞令 (replacing 外 with 社, sha, “association”), and the language-centric 美辞麗句 (bi ji rei ku).

This one isn’t intended to be deeply significant – although a little more tact and consideration for others certainly wouldn’t hurt our current public discourse – other than that the new era name will be 令和 and this compound uses 令.

Me 'n the posse rustlin' up some CAREFUL PLEASING WORDS

Image search results included this generic “diplomat”

About Confanity

I love the written word more than anything else I've had the chance to work with. I'm back in the States from Japan for grad school, but still studying Japanese with the hope of becoming a translator -- or writer, or even teacher -- as long as it's something language-related.
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2 Responses to In honor of the coming era

  1. Pingback: Not a vital value: 味 | landofnudotcom

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