I will examine your proposal in a positive manner!?

Cross-cultural communication is important. If you make little of it, you'll be slapped!

『ジャパン・タイムズ』紙のロジャー・パルヴァース氏のコラムは英語学習者におすすめである。もっとも、日本で英語を教えたりしているネイティヴ・スピーカーにも読んでもらいたいが。下に引用したコラムはeuphemisms（婉曲表現）について述べている。日本語の発想が英語国民にとってどう映るかが解って面白い。ちなみに、ぼくは、英語で「しまった」とか「本当かよ」とか云いたい時は、Oh, my God!と普通に云う。Jesus!とかも平気で云う。逆に、日本人がOh, my Gosh!とか云うとうそ臭く感じる（もちろん、云ってはいけないわけじゃない）。ちなみに、アメリカではいまの高校生ぐらいの子はOMGという。これは、頭文字をとっただけ。

Roger Pulvers's column in the Japan Times will be a good textbook for anyone who is interested in cross-cultural communication. I want any English teacher and learners in Japan to read his columns.

By the way, I usually use "Oh, my God" and "Jesus" rather than "(Oh, my) gosh" and "gee." Nowadays, I observed many high school students in the US say "OMG," which is the initial words of "Oh, my God."

Euphemisms may mask ruder instincts -- or not

By ROGER PULVERS

...Japanese people will use the squirmiest circumlocutions to avoid a confrontation. If you ask for something, you may be given the genteel refusal, kangaete okimasu. This literally means "I will think it over," and no Japanese would ever interpret this as a yes.

Another, more convoluted, refusal is indicated with maemuki-ni kento sasete itadakimasu (literally, "I will examine [your proposal] in a positive manner." Make that "positively no."

In Japanese "maybe" means "no" and "yes" means "maybe." So, you may wonder, how in tarnation (which is a euphemism from "eternal" and "damnation") do they ever get anything done? Search me. For instance, if a guy said to his date, "Issho ni yoake no kohi o no- mimasenka (Would you drink a cup of coffee at dawn with me?)," would she realize that he was offering her more than a shot of caffeine? The expression "coffee at dawn" comes from a nearly 40-year-old pop song, "Koi no Kisetsu." If you are going to use this, I advise you to try it first on a woman over 60.

Euphemisms soften the shock of words; and humans are most shocked, it seems, by words that describe sex, God and death, not necessarily in that order. The Japanese word neru (to sleep [with]) is a universal euphemism for making love. The most common euphemism for the horny, randy and raunchy is ecchi. This word derives from the first letter, h, of hentai, meaning abnormal or perverted. In its verbal form, it indicates the sex act itself.

...They were also invented to avoid blasphemy or to protect the speaker from the accusation of misdeed. English, in particular, is rich in words altered so as not to be blasphemous. These include "gosh" and "golly" from "God," and "gee" from "Jesus."

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/ek20070130a1.html