Contractions

 In America when we shorten words we call them contractions. Certain words like can not and would not are shortened for convenience into can't and wouldn't. There are only certain words in English that we can contract, but those laws don't apply in Japan.

In Japan, they contract everything from everyday words to name brands. In America when we shorten name brands it is usually with an acronym. An acronym is the use of initials in the place of words.

Let me give you an example of both: In 1985 Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System in America, but when people refer to it, they say the N.E.S. which is an acronym. In Japan they can't use acronyms because they don't use letters, they use symbols to express syllables which they place together to form words. A few years prior, in 1983, the N.E.S. was released in Japan under the name Family Computer and called it the Famicom for short. Fami from the word Family and com from the word computer. They do this all the time.

Using video games as another example, in 1996 Pocket Monsters was released for the Nintendo Game Boy in Japan, but for convenience people called it Pokemon, Poke from Pocket and mon from Monsters. By the time it was released in the US, the contraction was so popular among fans that they used the title Pokemon in all releases in America, but to this day it is still called Pocket Monsters in Japan with the latest releases full titles of Pocket Monsters X Version and Pocket Monsters Y Version.

There are many other examples of contractions used in Japan like the popular convenience store, Family Mart, which customers shortened to Famima. They also shorten the names of popular books and movies. Take for example one of my favorite Japanese books (which was made into a movie, coincidentally) Sekai no Chuushin de, Ai wo Sakebu which roughly translates into Crying out Love from the Center of the World. In Japan when fans say Sekachuu everyone knows exactly what they are referring to.

Just think if they did the same thing in the United States, the name of our country might have been shortened to Unista instead of using the familiar acronym, U.S.