けがのこうみょう (kegano koumyou)
* “J-WOTD” = “Japanese Word of the Day”
A “lucky mistake“, or “to come out of a mistake unscathed“. (Literally “Great feat from an injury”)
Once again, I heard this at work today. We had quite a serious mishap a few weeks ago, but we found it and fixed it before our SOX auditors did. It was unlucky (a 怪我, kega) for us, as we made the mistake, but very lucky that we found it when we did and are now able to include measures against doing it again in our operational procedures (hence the 功名, koumyou). It is also used quite colloquially in everyday language, in the sense of “talk about a lucky escape!”. A cool phrase. Should be put to use right away.
The English equivalent, from a Simpsons episode:
“To Pull a Homer”
Defined as “to succeed despite idiocy”
Cool.. I love these Japanese “word of the day” articles. I always remember these as you use them with interesting examples, and am keen for more. Keep it up!