The Rule of Three

       The last class, we learned about “the rule of three”.  This rule is sometimes used in stories written in English and is effective on making sentence powerful.  In Japanese, this rule is often used in proverbs.  I searched examples of this rule in Japanese.

1.     Pine, bamboo and plum

These words mean ranks of things.  Pine is the lowest, bamboo is the middle and plum is the highest rank.  These are seen in Japanese style hotels’ or first class Japanese restaurant’s names of rooms.

2.    Earthquake, Thunder, Fire and Father

This word is an exception of the rule of three.  This is a Japanese proverb and lists some of things which are thought the most terrible.  There are some opinions about the last word, “father”.  For example, this word had changed gradually from a word meaning typhoon.

3.    Food, clothing and shelter

This word’s meaning is the most important things to live.  It is said that if even one of them is not satisfied our lives, our life cannot be regard as a happy life.  So, we should try to pay attention to those three things in our life.

Besides those, there are many other examples of the rule of three.