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seeing double - is it a tiebar or is it a pencil? by keiko used with permission
Shock it
Work it
I am the magnificent, baby
Double-U oh oh oh oh
Phil and Ansel Collins, Double Barrel
Comes over one an absolute necessity to move. And what is more, to move in some particular direction. A double necessity then: to get on the move, and to know whither.
D H Lawrence, Sea and Sardinia
We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is the skilful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and not rip up his work with the other edge?
Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
There are a lot of loan words in Japanese. Some are very interesting and clever. サボる - saboru - is sabotage with a Japanese verb ending. It means to cut class or work. フライング - furaingu - comes from flying start. It came from a false start in athletics but now it's used for anything that starts off too early.
And W. W is the letter double-U of course. So W is used as a very neat shorthand for double. Two. Or two times. You often see it in advertising copy. So on packaging W means double volume or double thickness.
The photo above is a tiebar that doubles as a mechanical pencil. Normally you wouldn't be able to see the pencil tip because it would be completely retracted and also it would be clipped behind the shirt. A mechanical pencil in Japanese is always called a sharp pen or sharp pencil シャーペン or シャープペンシル because one of Sharp's first products was the Ever-Ready Sharp mechanical pencil.
There are some cute bunnies on the tie in the photo. I like the anthropomorphic one covering its eyes like a human. So what is an aikibunny? Nobody has ever met one. It's a kind of urban myth - an aikidoka who cares more about organic food than martial effectiveness. Well I'm vegetarian. And the only real rabbit I knew well was tough and fearless. In fiction Br'er Rabbit and Peter Rabbit were resourceful and intelligent. This is the year of the rabbit. So have a carrot. They are good for your teeth and good for your body. W.
05-13-2011 08:45 PM 
