Peccadilloes in Nippon and in Nipponese with a Quixotic Perspective. Coming at you from Yokohama, near Tokyo.
April 23, 2007
Your word of the day
屁理屈 (herikutsu) means sophistry, quibble, or nonsense. 理屈 means theory, and 屁 means fart. I find this very funny, because if you say someone is a 屁理屈屋 (herikutsuya, or sophist), you are saying they are full of hot air in more ways than one.
I don't know if you were planning on doing this sort of thing daily from now on, but it's intersting timing because only 2 hours ago during my own studies I decided to start a regular series on my own blog where I compare the nuance of 2 to 4 similar words, although I can't do anything until I actually get home tonight.
“herikutsu” collocates with “koku”. ex) kare wa itsumo herikutsu wo koku. It is natural and not bad. “he” or “koku” itself sounds bad, though. Girls never say “he wo koku”, which however is natural for boys in a casual situation. We use “herikutsukoki” instead of “herikutsuya” in Osaka dialect. It’s not very polite but the casual usage of “herikutsuya”.
Hey you just taught me an English word, Mayumi (collocate). As for koku: seeing as how koku can mean "let a fart loose" this saying got that much funnier. But does he wo koku mean fart or lie, or both?
“herikutsu wo koku” means to use sophystry. “he wo koku” means to fart. Yes! I looked up my Japanese English dictionary and found out. It says koku means to tell and is used to tell a lie. “koku” alone doesn’t mean to lie but I remembered there was a Japanese expression “uso koku na”, meaning “Don’t tell a lie.”
I teach you English and you teach me Japanese, clayton. :)
I don't know if you were planning on doing this sort of thing daily from now on, but it's intersting timing because only 2 hours ago during my own studies I decided to start a regular series on my own blog where I compare the nuance of 2 to 4 similar words, although I can't do anything until I actually get home tonight.
ReplyDeleteIf I could find funny words like this everyday, I would. Alas...
ReplyDelete“herikutsu” collocates with “koku”. ex) kare wa itsumo herikutsu wo koku. It is natural and not bad. “he” or “koku” itself sounds bad, though. Girls never say “he wo koku”, which however is natural for boys in a casual situation. We use “herikutsukoki” instead of “herikutsuya” in Osaka dialect. It’s not very polite but the casual usage of “herikutsuya”.
ReplyDeleteHey you just taught me an English word, Mayumi (collocate).
ReplyDeleteAs for koku: seeing as how koku can mean "let a fart loose" this saying got that much funnier.
But does he wo koku mean fart or lie, or both?
“herikutsu wo koku” means to use sophystry.
ReplyDelete“he wo koku” means to fart.
Yes! I looked up my Japanese English dictionary and found out. It says koku means to tell and is used to tell a lie. “koku” alone doesn’t mean to lie but I remembered there was a Japanese expression “uso koku na”, meaning “Don’t tell a lie.”
I teach you English and you teach me Japanese, clayton. :)