words allowed poets to impart more meaning into fewer words. Goroawase (語呂合わせ, "phonetic matching") is an especially common form of Japanese wordplay...

to the Edo period (1603–1867), may have been inspired by the goroawase (語呂合わせ, lit. "phonetic matching") of the characters for the words “winter solstice”...

is a 1991 album by the Japanese rock trio Shonen Knife. Using goroawase (語呂合わせ, "phonetic matching"), "712" can be read as "na-i-fu" (ナイフ), the Japanese...

relationship with the anniversary, but some are the product of Japanese wordplay (語呂合わせ, goroawase). These are listed by month in date order. Those excluded from...