1 I posted a comment on wonderduck's thread on the same topic, so sorry if I'm being repetitive. You do a good job of explaining this, but I have a caveat and a note.

As I said in the wonderduck thread, "stir up" seems like a clunker of a definition for moriageru. It's not actually incorrect, in the sense that moriageru could certainly be translated that way in some circumstances, but it seems really off to me. "Liven up", "enliven", and "brighten [up]" would all be better, I think, if you are looking to get the word across. Even "Overload with fun" is closer than "stir up", which is usually attached to the word "trouble" in English.

As for tame.. I would be very suspicious of a J-E dictionary that didn't have tame in it. It has to be among the several hundred most used words in Japanese, and you're unlikely to get through an arbitrary episode of anime without hearing it a few times.

Tame is actually a fine freestanding word, meaning something like "benefit". This is really clear in the common set phrase "tame ni naru" which means something like "beneficial". This actually explains the more common use "in order to" pretty well- ultra literally it would be something like "for the benefit of this purpose".

From there it's not hard to see how it might also mean "because" (I am hesitant to say that it evolved into that meaning as I am not sure of the chronology) though there isn't a satisfying ultra-literal explanation of that (one of the example sentences in my dictionary involves getting diarrhea "because" of contaminated water, and it is hard to see who that benefits, except  maybe the bacteria involved). Still, I think this way of looking at tame can help in understanding its usage.

Anyway, sorry to geek out on you- your explanation is definitely good.

2 I certainly don't mind. It's been a couple years since I had any real practice with the language. I am quite rusty, and I have no doubts that some of the professional instruction I got in school may be wrong in places.

3 Well, having seen your comments in other threads you don't seem rusty to me. But I do see a lot of  cavilling based partly on the Monash definition of moriageru. As I said, I think it is a very bad definition.

Mainly I think it is very dangerous to evaluate a translation on the basis of one dictionary entry (or one dictionary's entries), particularly for people who don't speak any Japanese. Of course I wouldn't include you in that camp.

Anyway, I do know which forum Jim Breen reads and I will post something about moriageru there. It won't help with sites using older versions of the Monash JDICT, but...

Anyway, as I said, I think you did a very good job explaining the phrase.

4

Thanks.

What I really need to find is my Kodansha Furigana dictionary. Nelson's great if you're looking up a kanji compund like 世界, but the furigana dictionary is so much better for finding phrases like 盛り上げる.

The Nelson does have an entry for 盛り上げる, but it only says "pile up" or "heap up."

Those definitions are clunkers as well. I think the problem lies in the addition of "save" and "fun" to the fansub translation. Those words simply aren't in the original Japanese text. Not even by implication, as far as I can tell. Looking at this complete title out of context (as we both know, a big no-no with Japanese), I'd be lost trying to figure out how one could "pile up the world completely."

That's why I want my furigana dictionary. It contains a lot of colloquialisms and implied meaning. It's too bad I seem to have lost it in my last move.

5

I guess you could take liberties with the definition of 大いに to mean "to bursting" and 盛り上げる to mean "to fill up." Combine that with the implication that everything Haruhi ever says or does is about having more fun, and you get...

Haruhi Suzumiya's group for (the purpose of) filling the world to bursting with fun.

The "saving" is the only part really left out, and that comes from the original SOS abbreviation.

Well, now that that's settled. *cough*