Why is it that when Kagami used Konata's keyboard, what she intended to type did not come out as what she wrote?
This occurred at the very beginning of episode 23.
Why is it that when Kagami used Konata's keyboard, what she intended to type did not come out as what she wrote?
This occurred at the very beginning of episode 23.
Since nobody else has attempted an answer, I'll give this my best shot. Be forewarned that this answer will be fragmentary. Also, this explanation will probably be kind of difficult to follow if you don't already know a bit of Japanese. Suggestions/edits to make the explanation clearer are welcome.
To understand why this is funny, you need to know how input method editors work.
In order to type in Japanese, one typically uses an input method editor (IME), which is a program that basically converts Latin-script text like nihon
into Japanese text, e.g. 日本 (gloss: "Japan"). Since the mapping from Latin letters to Japanese text is one-to-many, the IME doesn't always correctly guess what Japanese text you want, forcing you to go into a menu and select the correct Japanese text.
IMEs usually allow you to define your own Latin-to-Japanese conversions. For example, I've set my IME to convert toripurubaka
to 驫麤. IMEs will also frequently adjust which Japanese text it automatically selects based on your previous usage patterns, so if you frequently correct e.g. saikai
from 再会 to 最下位 (homographs when romanized), the IME will eventually start defaulting to give you 最下位 when you type saikai
.
So.
First, Kagami types fuchou
, expecting 不調 (fuchou = "unwell") but instead getting 婦長 (fuchou = "head nurse"). Then, maniaisou
, expecting 間に合いそう (maniai-sou = "likely to make it in time") but getting マニア移送 (mania-isou = "transfer of being-a-fan(??)" - this isn't an actual phrase). I think these two are just supposed to be funny because of how silly they are.
After that, Kagami types josou
, expecting 助走 (josou = "a run-up") but getting 女装 (josou = "crossdressing as a woman"). Perhaps this is supposed to reveal something about what Konata posts about on the internet.
Kagami then types fuinki
, expecting 雰囲気 (fun'iki = "atmosphere [metaphorically]"). Note the discrepancy between the Latin input and the proper romanization - this results in the IME displaying ふいんき(←なぜか変換できない) ("fuinki
(← unable to convert for some reason)"). This IME conversion failure is apparently a meme on 2ch, dating from circa 2003 (see also this answer on Japanese.SE about metathesis). The implication, I suppose, is that Konata has been posting this meme enough that she set up a custom conversion to let her type it faster.
Kagami types kuwasiku
, expecting 詳しく (kuwashiku = "in detail"), but instead getting kwsk. As it would happen, kwsk (derived from kuwashiku "in detail") is basically the Japanese equivalent of "sauce pls".
Finally, she types ikitai
, expecting いきたい (ikitai = "want to do ~ going forward"), but instead getting 逝きたい (ikitai = "want to perish"). Like the first two, I think this is just funny because of how silly it is.