This post isn’t Kumamoto specific. It relates to the topic of “English in Japan.”
Sitting at the dinner table this evening I noticed that we had a can of Campbell’s Cream Mushroom, which made me do a double take because I grew up eating Campbell’s “Cream of Mushroom” soup. I think that the folks at Campbell’s took out the “of” to make the name shorter and easier to market in Japan. Of course, as English, “Cream Mushroom” sounds pretty odd, at least to me. The interesting thing to me is that Japanese consumers with an interest in learning authentic English would probably never guess that a foreign company like Campbell’s would turn their product name into 和製英語 (wasei eigo; Japanglish). I think this is an example how the abundance of English in Japan can sow more confusion about what constitutes proper English than understanding of the language.
– KIrk