Deer and Doughnuts

[steepholm]

Having Haruka to stay makes for some interesting cross-cultural moments. The other day she saw a Mr Kipling Cherry Bakewell for the first time, and cried, "It's the hinomaru!" And it's true, the resemblance, once seen, cannot be erased.



Then, a couple of days ago, we were looking at a field of deer, and we got to talking about the different names in English for the male, female and young of various animals. (This is one of the areas where English is far more complicated than Japanese, which has a standard prefix for each of these things.) I mentioned that a female deer was called a doe - like in the song.

She looked blank. What song? It turned out that, though she was familiar with that song from The Sound of Music, in Japanese the tonic sol-fa system has a very different mnemonic. In particular, the "Doh" line is:　ドはドーナツのド ("Doh" is the "doh" from "doughnut"). This seemed so quintessentially Homeric (in the Simpson sense) that I had to laugh. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting - something more Japanese, I suppose?

Comments

[cmcmck]

Wonder what the good folk of Bakewell would make of that? :o)

[steepholm]

I like to think that they'd be proud - possibly even chuffed!

[calimac]

Wait - so the English word "doughnut" is known in Japanese?

I suppose it's no more surprising than guessing the word "doe" as in deer might be.

What the original lyrics mostly prove to me is that Oscar Hammerstein was not a very inspired punster.

[steepholm]

Yes, it's a direct borrowing, pronounced something like "dohnatsu."

Agreed about Hammerstein. I blush for him over "La - a note to follow So."