Are you OK?

Zhaofei Chen recently came across a Japanese bath bucket (湯桶 yuoke) with a big “あ” carved inside. She says that it’s literally called “あゆおけ (ayuoke),” which sounds just like “Are you OK?”, a perfect mix of Japanese and English.

Etymology

/juwoke/ → /juoke/

From Old Japanese. Compound of 湯 (yu, “warm or hot water”) +‎ 桶 (oke, “a bucket or pail; a tub”), itself a compound of 麻 (o, “flax, ramie”) + 笥 (ke, “a container, especially for foodstuffs or tableware”).

Pronunciation

• • (Tokyo) ゆおけ [yùóké] (Heiban – [0])
  • (Tokyo) ゆおけ [yùóꜜkè] (Nakadaka – [2])
  • IPA^(key): [jɯ̟o̞ke̞]

(Wiktionary)

Ingenious!

Selected readings

• "Top Tier Taobao Trick or Treat T-shirt" (10/31/25)
• "Mysterious sign in Japanese and Russian" (3/27/16)
• "Katratripulr" (5/6/22)
• "New expressions for karaoke: the phoneticization of Chinese" (9/25/21)
• "I don't feel OK" (12/27/18) — I feel not OK
• "Justin Bieber OK infix" (2/13/18)
• "O.K. is rude" (11/27/19) 
• "If they give me more is OK" (3/26/12)
• "Sure, I'll take a stab at it" (9/28/10)
• "Not OK." (2/20/11)
• "Keep on -inging" (10/30/17)
• " The MaxPlanckForschung Cover Fiasco: How It Happened" (1/3/09)

(VHM note:  the last two items explain how "karaOK" works]