Just a silly question:
In Japan, transit ICs tend to have names that come from wordplays. A few examples:
* ICOCA plays with “Ikoka” (“shall we go?” in Kinki dialect)
* SUICA plays with “sui-sui” (to move smoothly) and “suika” (watermelon)
* MANACA plays with “mannaka” (“center” – the geographical position of Nagoya in Japan)
* SUGOCA plays with “sugoka” (“great” in Kyushu dialect)
I just wonder if there is some sort of wordplay in the name PASMO. The card design is “Mo Mo Pasmo”. Does “mo-mo” mean something like the sound of the train horn in Japanese?
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You’re not looking at the pictures, it’s ‘train mo bus mo Pasmo’.
There are symbols of a train and a bus before the mos.
電車も、バスも、PASMO
According to Wikipedia it’s a play on PASSNET (The old magnetic system) and the first syllable of the English word “more”. As for the design of the card, it’s meant to show that you can use it for both train and bus. Notice the icons before the “mo” (Densha mo, Basu mo).
But you’re also disregarding that most have ‘IC’ in the name, or “CA” from ‘card’.
My favorite flavor is Kitaca, for no particular wordplay reason. Just like the sound.
~~”icoca” (ikouka, 行こうか) is just regular spoken Japanese, not specific from Kinki.~~ I stand corrected, it’s “ikoka” (いこか).
EcoMyCa is [another] one that plays with local dialects (“ecology my card”, but also “let’s go” in Toyama dialect).
PiTaPa also deserves a mention for the dumb wordplay like Pasmo does, but it’s also the worst payment and transit card in Japan (how about filling 10 forms and getting a credit check before waiting a month for your transit card?).
I thought Suica was a play on すいか.
What about TOICA?
This thread reminds me what a great brand name ‘DoCoMo’ is.
> SUICA plays with “sui-sui” (to move smoothly)
Nah, it’s the watermelon card.
And poor Shikoku has no cool card with a pun, because we still run diesel trains with paper tickets.
SUICA is also a word play on the word 追加 (ついか) to “add” or “addition” to the amount of money in your card
CHAdeMO is another good one with a few layers to unpeel.
PASMO is the unique number counter for very flat card-like objects that happen to have a photo of a train on it, when that object is within 500 meters of an ocean where crustaceans may inhabit. Also, the unique counter for crustaceans is HAI, which you can also use to greet them underwater
In Kyushu we use NIMOCA, which according to the net stands for ‘NIce MOney CArd’
Edit: should clarify NIMOCA seems to be used only in Fukuoka and Oita. Not all Kyushu