Bokeh - when did that word become so popular?

[thoughton]

Bokeh (selective focus using a larger aperture to create out of focus blurry zones. Those zones are often characterized by circular or multi-sided out of focus light sources). Wikipedia definition here.

Perhaps we're reading different Wikipedia articles The first paragraph seems to say exactly what you're describing.

[Wicked Dark]

Martin Bailey has lived and worked in Tokyo for over a decade. He's married a Japanese woman and even has acquired Japanese citizenship, changing his name to do so. I trust his info.

[Gremlich]

That's a funny podcast. Martin Bailey with such a strong British accent trying to tell others how to pronounce words.

Two bits worth....

He does speak mainstream "high" Japanese and anybody who is a polyglot knows that to really learn and speak a given language, your mouth parts need to change to speak that language properly. I have facility in Tagalog, German and Russian. In the case of the latter two, the native speakers were at a loss as to my nation of origin, usually thinking me Canadian or Danish when speaking German (ne, ne, ne, da mog i net!), and someplace in Europe or Armenia for Russian. Even Canadians are unsure where I am from whenever I speak "Amurican" (Maine, but that's close enough to the Maritimes to make me "Okay".). Don't think that because he has a pronounced accent when speaking his Native English that he sounds the same way whilst speaking Japanese. Fun fact: Did you know that Japanese also has male and female grammar patterns? (meaning men speak differently than females - which can be hilarious when western men learn their Japanese from Anime and then try to use it whilst playing MMORPGs populated with Japanese men who think they are playing against western women.)

[JAS_Photo]

Personally, I think it was Flickr that popularized the term. I never really heard it much before joining Flickr, where everyone goes gaga over every mostly out of focus photo. I think HBGirl has it right, OoF areas do not necessarily make for great photos. I see many, many on Flickr that have big distracting blobs in them that to me are big ugly distractions not lovely bokeh.