This writer, on previous occasions, has expressed irritation over the recent tendency for the vernacular media to rely heavily on English borrowings for neologisms with socially negative connotations, such as sexual harassment, stalking and domestic violence — to name three examples.
As a case in point, an online search for hēto supīchi (hate speech) garnered 4,410,000 hits, as opposed to only 1,550,000 hits for zo'o hyōgen (hateful expressions), the native Japanese equivalent.
In the view of some, use of English (written out in katakana characters) subliminally suggests that these phenomena are anomalies, an invasive foreign species — like snapping turtles in the pond at Hibiya Park — that has somehow managed to grab a foothold.
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