無残 (muzan: cruelty, atrocity, cold-bloodedness, tragedy, misery)
no + cruel
コメディアンは無残な死や大事故といった悲劇的
状況を冗談のネタにしている。
Komedian wa muzanna shi ya daijiko to itta higekiteki jōkyō o jōdan no neta ni shite iru.
Comedians base jokes on tragic situations like violent deaths or serious accidents.死 (shi: death)
大事故 (daijiko: serious accident; major incident)
big + event + incident
悲劇的 (higekiteki: tragic)
sad + drama + adjectival suffix
状況 (jōkyō: situation, circumstances)
situation + conditions
冗談 (jōdan: joke)
useless + talk
ネタ (neta: material; joke material; contents; rough idea;
clue)This word comes from 種 (tane: seed) and is its inverse. Although ネタ can also mean “seed,” it has acquired more meanings. Does it seem random to create a word by inverting kana in this way? A native speaker tells me, “There’s no particular reason for flipping it around. People do that for fun, such as with ズジャ (zuja) for ジャズ (jazu: jazz) and なおん (naon) for おんな（onna: women). Most of them are just slang, but ネタ is an exception, in that it has almost become an established word.” It’s also the exception because some of its meanings differ from that of 種, whereas the definitions remain the same with the other inversions.
