「アベノミクス」とか

“I'm shocked to find that you don't say that in English!”[1]

David S. Spengler

　　I was recently asked about the origin of the term “Abenomics,” which the media has coined for the economic policies of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Specifically, the question was based on the logic that if U.S. President Ronald Reagan's economic policies were called “Reaganomics,” which is formed by combining “Reagan” and “economics” at the shared letter “n,” shouldn't the term for Prime Minister Abe's economic policies be combined at the shared letter “e,” and therefore be called “Abeconomics”? Would non-Japanese-speakers understand “Abenomics”? I suppose “Abeconomics” makes sense in the abstract, but I had never heard that term and the thought had never occurred to me. I haven't been able to pin down whether the term “Abenomics” first appeared in the Japanese or the English (or other non-Japanese) press,[2] but my guess is that it would have been coined by the English media whether or not the term was used in Japanese.[3] As to why “Abenomics” rather than “Abeconomics,” I can only conjecture as a native-English-speaker that “Abenomics” rolls off the tongue[4] more easily, and as with “Reaganomics,” maintains the same number of syllables as “economics.”

　　I would expect[5] the meaning of “Abenomics” (as in[6] “the economic policies of PM Abe,” not necessarily the policies themselves) to be clear to just about any native-English-speaker who knows the name of Japan's prime minister. That is not always the case with English-sounding words commonly used in Japanese,[7] however. I remember soon after coming to Japan,[8] a Japanese friend was giving me directions to a location in Shibuya and said something like, “Walk out of the station and go to the sukuranburu crossing.” When I asked what a sukuranburu was, she could not believe that I didn't know, insisting that it was an English term. This was long before the Internet, so[9] I could only say that it was not English, at least as spoken[10] in the regions of the United States where I had lived. (Interestingly, however, according to Wikipedia, the first sukuranburu intersections were in the United States and the term “scramble intersection” is used in Canada, although it does not appear in my English dictionary.)

　　As a Japanese-to-English translator based in Japan, it is important to be careful when translating these types of words. When you hear and read the terms every day, and everyone around you understands what they mean, it is easy to forget that a term may not be “real English.” A good example of this in the news right now is the term “Lehman Shock.” Like “scramble crossing,” both “Lehman” and “shock” have clear meanings in English, but the combined term does not − there is not even an English Wikipedia entry (as of this writing[11])! In the U.S. media, the financial market events of mid- to late-2008 are referred to as the “global financial crisis,” which led to the “great recession” that continued for several years thereafter. This is because the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was one of a series of events in the United States and Europe associated with[12] the collapse of the financial markets. In the United States, these events included the government-orchestrated[13] sale of Bear Stearns[14] in March, and the government takeovers[15] of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the largest U.S. mortgage-finance[16] companies) and American International Group (AIG) in September. In fact, the Lehman bankruptcy was closer to the end than to the beginning of that chain of events, and was seen more as an effect than as a cause of the larger crisis.

　　Without going into too much detail,[17] the underlying cause of the crisis was “subprime” real estate lending in the United States, which led to a bubble in the residential property[18] market. Lenders assumed that real estate prices would continue to rise indefinitely, so if a borrower became unable to repay their mortgage[19] the lender would simply seize[20] the property and sell it to recover[21] their loan. The problem was made worse by the packaging of these loans into securities (known as collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs[22]), which in turn led to even more, increasingly high-risk lending.[23] When borrowers began defaulting on[24] their mortgages, the effect was like a house of cards;[25] there were suddenly more properties for sale than there were buyers, property prices fell, and the value of the securities plunged.

　　It was the Lehman bankruptcy, however, that was felt around the world and that brought the crisis home in Japan.[26] This was because of the institution's[27] large international presence[28] and the number of counterparties[29] around the world that stood to lose[30] significant sums as a result. Even if they hadn't bought the toxic securities,[31] financial institutions in Japan and other countries had engaged in a broad range of transactions with Lehman Brothers in other businesses, and stood to suffer significant losses if suddenly Lehman Brothers were to default on those transactions. For these institutions, therefore, it was Lehman Brothers that set off[32] the “shock.”

　　To get back to translating,[33] this is why it is important for a translator to follow events in their field in both their source and target languages,[34] using reliable native-language sources for each. Even if an Internet search produces English hits, what are the sources of those hits? If they are overwhelmingly from Japanese sources, additional confirmation[35] is needed. For a term like “Lehman Shock,” this could include[36] searching the Internet sites of major newspapers like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times.

　　With the term “Lehman Shock,” the use of the suffix “shock” is also a warning sign. Even though the meaning may be understood, this usage of the term[37] to indicate an event with major socioeconomic repercussions is more common in the Japanese media than in English (the “Oil Shock” of 1973 is known more commonly in the United States as the “Oil Crisis”). A similar term in the United States is the suffix “gate,” which is used to indicate a political scandal. Ever since[38] a break-in at the Watergate office complex[39] triggered the “Watergate” scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation, the suffix “gate” has come to be used at the first whiff[40] of scandal. The Reagan administration had “Iran-Contra-gate,”[41] the Clinton administration had “File-gate”[42] and “Monica-gate,”[43] and the George W. Bush administration had “WMD-gate.”[44] These terms are used more by political adversaries than the mainstream media, however, to create the impression of a major scandal. I don't recall having read or heard of a “gate” associated with the Obama administration yet, but if there is one, let's hope that it doesn't cause too much of a shock.

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