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What does the following sentence mean?

女子高生に唾液かけた疑い　逮捕の男「困る姿楽しい」

Especially the relationships between:

  • 唾液 and かけた
  • 困る姿 and 楽しい

Is 困る姿 楽しい?

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please put some major effort in improving the formatting of your questions (not just this one). Additionally, please refrain from treating JLU like a live translation service: your questions should show that you made some basic effort at answering them yourself before turning to JLU. –  Dave Mar 6 '12 at 5:41

2 Answers 2

In newspapers, omission is extreme. The case particles and are respectively omitted. Normally, it would be as follows:

女子高生に唾液 かけた疑い
'suspected of having put spit (= spitted) on a female high school student'

困る姿 楽しい
'(watching) the figure being bothered is fun'

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What happens when one reads the newspapers out loud? Do we automatically put in all the missing elements? –  Flaw Mar 6 '12 at 5:10
In casual speech, case particles are often dropped as well. So when read out loud, it will be read just as written. –  user458 Mar 6 '12 at 5:12
Also, does ・・・疑い modify 逮捕の男・・・? Or are they two separate sentences? (Meant to comment on your post but somehow the answers switched places and commented on Dono's initially). –  Flaw Mar 6 '12 at 5:15
They are two separate noun phrases. They are not syntactically connected. –  user458 Mar 6 '12 at 5:24


"On suspicion of spitting on a high school girl."


Adding a little context will always help in getting better answers. In this case, I just read this in the news so am familiar with it. The full quote is: 「(制服姿の女子高生に興味があり、唾液をかけられて)困る姿(を想像するのが)楽し(かった)」.

"(I am interested in uniformed high school girls, and) I enjoy(ed imagining her) distressed (figure with spit on it)", says arrested man.

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Is the part inside the parentheses from the quote or your interpretation? Either way, 想像するのが does not fit well in the context. If it were just for imagining, the person didn't need to actually do it. The fact that he actually did it means that he wanted to "see" rather than to "imagine". –  user458 Mar 6 '12 at 5:10
Does ・・・疑い modify 逮捕の男「困る姿楽しい」? Or are they two separate sentences? –  Flaw Mar 6 '12 at 5:13
@sawa No, it is from the newspaper. I only added () around the parts that are missing from the headline. They are found in the actual articles. –  Dono Mar 6 '12 at 5:27
@Flaw No, it does not modify it. Although it is a headline and is greatly abbreviated, you may think of it as two separate sentences. The implied, missing portion is that the man who is quoted in the second half was arrested on suspicion of spitting on her. –  Dono Mar 6 '12 at 5:31
You don't need to know the case in order to interpret the meaning. 女子高生に唾液かけた疑い　逮捕の男「困る姿楽しい」. In English: "[Arrested on] suspicion of spitting on female high-school students. Arrested man [finds] "embarrassed appearance pleasurable". It's understood as the continuation of 疑い that the person has been apprehended. The information in brackets 「 」is quoting the person. So we know the person was arrested for spitting, and we know he found their "embarrassed appearance pleasurable". –  Bathrobe Mar 6 '12 at 14:57

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