黙殺

Japanese

黙殺 (hiragana もくさつ, rōmaji mokusatsu)

At the close of World War II, Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki chose mokusatsu to express Japan's reaction to the Potsdam Declaration's demand for Japan's unconditional surrender. It was translated to mean that Japan rejected the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and later it was often suggested that the Allies took his response to be more assertive than he putatively intended it to be, the ostensible mistranslation thus contributing to the events that followed.
The Japanese verb for withholding comment is mokusatsu(suru), which you could better understand culturally as, “We'll wait in silence until we can speak with wisdom.”

黙殺する (transitive, hiragana もくさつする, rōmaji mokusatsu suru)

to take no notice of
to treat with silent contempt
to shut one’s eyes
to ignore
to withhold comment
to cut someone dead
to withdraw from discussion, a common practice to take pause and reflect on what has been discussed and what the next steps should be

Conjugation of "黙殺する" (See Appendix:Japanese verbs.)

Stem forms
Imperfective (未然形)	黙殺し	もくさつし	mokusatsu shi
Continuative (連用形)	黙殺し	もくさつし	mokusatsu shi
Terminal (終止形)	黙殺する	もくさつする	mokusatsu suru
Attributive (連体形)	黙殺する	もくさつする	mokusatsu suru
Hypothetical (仮定形)	黙殺すれ	もくさつすれ	mokusatsu sure
Imperative (命令形)	黙殺せよ¹ 黙殺しろ²	もくさつせよ¹ もくさつしろ²	mokusatsu seyo¹ mokusatsu shiro²
Key constructions
Passive	黙殺される	もくさつされる	mokusatsu sareru
Causative	黙殺させる黙殺さす	もくさつさせるもくさつさす	mokusatsu saseru mokusatsu sasu
Potential	黙殺できる	もくさつできる	mokusatsu dekiru
Volitional	黙殺しよう	もくさつしよう	mokusatsu shiyō
Negative	黙殺しない	もくさつしない	mokusatsu shinai
Negative continuative	黙殺せず	もくさつせず	mokusatsu sezu
Formal	黙殺します	もくさつします	mokusatsu shimasu
Perfective	黙殺した	もくさつした	mokusatsu shita
Conjunctive	黙殺して	もくさつして	mokusatsu shite
Hypothetical conditional	黙殺すれば	もくさつすれば	mokusatsu sureba
¹ Written imperative ² Spoken imperative

2002, Ineko Kondō; Fumi Takano; Mary E Althaus; et. al., Shogakukan Progressive Japanese-English Dictionary, Third Edition, Tokyo: Shōgakukan, →ISBN.

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