A CULTURAL HISTORY OF JAPANESE WOMEN'S LANGUAGE by Endo Orie. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2006, 140 pp., $38 (cloth)

When I was first studying Japanese back in 1947, I went to a local language school where the teachers were mostly older ladies, born in the Meiji Era (1868-1912). They taught the language of that period -- in the form that they knew it. As a result, we students spoke some anomalous Japanese.

One day I accidentally bumped into someone on the street, turned, bowed and said, as I had been taught: "Gomenasobasei." It was not until I noticed other passers-by convulsed with laughter at my apology that I suspected I might have been taught the wrong thing.

Indeed I had, for the form is firmly feminine. There is no way to translate it into English but an approximation might be: "Mercy me! I am so very, very sorry!" Not something that a male should be saying.