The award s organizers said Thursday that the nickname for Yakult Swallows record-breaking hitter Munetaka Murakami, Murakami-sama, was selected as Japan's top buzzword for 2022.
After the 22 year-old became Nippon Professional Baseball's youngest batting Triple Crown winner in October, fans coined the word Murakami-sama in a play with words over his name and the kanji Chinese character kami, meaning god in Japanese, and further added the honorific suffix sama. In the top 10 this year was the phrase shiran kedo, roughly meaning I don't know for sure, in the dialect of the Kansai area of western Japan, which has become popular among younger generations and is used when the speaker wants to avoid making definitive statements.
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