The Strange Tale of the Hotchkiss
The Strange Tale of the Hotchkiss Some time ago my attention was drawn to the origins of the word ホチキス (hochikisu) (sometimes ホッチキス) in Japanese. To a native speaker of English who actually knows the word Hotchkiss, it usually refers to a WWI machine gun and related military impedimenta. To a Japanese ホチキス invariably refers to an office paper stapler, for which it is the generic name just as "hoover" is the term for vacuum cleaner in the UK. When I first encountered the term in Japanese I ass