Be a thing

A picture of avocado toast.
(Photo: Ellen/Unsplash | Text: David/ArtisanEnglish.jp)

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WotD: Be a thing

Every business person wants their product to be a thing, and almost every famous person wants to be a thing, too.


When someone or something is a thing, it/they are well known and recognized.


It often refers to fads.

So many have been a thing in Japan since I came here that I cannot remember them all.

There was the banana diet, the Atkins diet and, of course, the spicy garlic oil, which still tastes scrumptious on rice.

These days bubble tea is a thing in Japan.

Way back when I met my wife in Vancouver, bubble tea was a thing then.

At that time, I thought tapioca was some kind of fish egg.

Hey, don’t judge!

We all live and learn.

I just had a lot of living and learning to do at that time.

It was not too long ago when everyone in Japan was walking around talking about curling, eating strawberries and saying そだねー (sodane) every five minutes.

Remember when that was a thing?

When I first began teaching at high school, everyone was talking about how no one else could ‘read the air’ (空気読よめない ).

I saw pictures of my wife as a high school student with loose socks, which were a thing back when she was young.

They used to glue the socks to their legs to get them to stay up.

Can you imagine that?

I suppose the bottom line is that whatever is a thing now probably won’t be a thing in a year or two.

Life trends change quickly.

そだねー


Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 75.

The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.


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