On Fri, 29 Nov 1996, Malka Korman wrote:

Goosed wrote:

That's true.  But Maison Ikkoku is "Maison", not "Mansion."

I've *heard* (not sure if this is accurate or not) that "Mezon", the
correct romanized spelling of the word, is a French loanword meaning
mansion or elegant house.  This would make you right, sort of...

Rant mode on:  "Mezon" is NOT the correct romanized version of the word.

It's not?  That's how it's spelled in hiragana.

It's NOT pronounced "Maa-ee-zawn", which it would be if that were the
correct romanization.  It's pronounced "May-zawn".  The character "Me"
in hiragana is quite different from the TWO characters "Ma" and "i".

'kay?

It's a loanword from French, as you pointed out.  There's a simple 
reason the hiragana is used instead of katakana: it looks nicer.  (I've
actually talked to a couple of Japanese folks about this.)

Until you mentioned it, I never really looked at whether it was katakana
or hiragana, but yes, I've heard of hiragana being used where katakana
normally would be.

Rant mode off.

Usually, Japanese apartment complexes use the word "mansion" as part of
the name, which used to imply style, elegance, etc.  Of course, now it
just implies that this is an apartment building.

"Maison," OTOH, is not generally used for apartment buildings. Far as
I know (dimly reaching back to high school French here), "maison" means
"house" in French.  But it may be that Takahashi's using it the way 
that American restaurants call themselves something like "chez Pierre."

Yup, that's exactly it.  I asked my Japanese teacher about this one at
one point, and that's what she said.  (I am now out of college, but...)

Gavin Steyn

PS  I hate to be nitpicky, but this thread's already been going on a
little while...

Oh, we don't mind.  I'll just be nitpickiER.  *giggle*

Damon Casale, scyth@prolog.com / scyth@andrew.cmu.edu
You have entered the dimwit zone...