Golden Week honors a lot of occasions

Here’s a little lesson, with the imminent arrival of "Golden Week," when most working Japanese have time off and can travel.

It seems to have all started with the celebration of Emperor Hirohito’s birthday, but since he died in 1989, April 29 is now noted as Showa Day, honoring his 63-year reign during a tumultuous period in Japanese history. The week also now includes Constitution Memorial Day on May 3, Greenery Day on May 4 and Children’s Day (Hawaii Japanese still mark Girls’ Day and Boys’ Day separately, so look for the carp flags flying here next Saturday.)

One name for such a national celebration is borrowed from English: "Goruden Wiku." There’s also the more indigenous but decidedly less sparkly "Ogata Renkyu." That means "large consecutive holiday."

Cookie king a master of persistence

Wally Amos, 75, cookie magnate and former celebrity agent, has a lot of marketing years under his belt. Maybe there’s something clever in his naming his new cookie brand WAMOS with the tag line, "From the recipe that made me (fā’•mŭs)."

He lost ownership of his erstwhile brand Famous Amos decades ago, after all, so using the phonetic symbols is a neat trick. Amos has said that he is legally barred from using "Wally," "Famous," "Amos" or his likeness as part of his own brand.

Frankly, there aren’t many options. Check out any rhyming dictionary: There are obscure nouns like "ramus," "shamus" and "brademas." "Mandamus" or "ignoramus"? Worse. There’s that lovely Irish name Seamus, but the whole Mitt Romney dog story has spoiled that.

Amos is going with the original recipe, which was pretty good, so he’s got to hope that’s worth something.