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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Japanese Language Trivia of the Day:

This week, it looks like we're gonna be working off of a general theme of "interest."

Yesterday's 興味津々 leads us nicely into the idea of today's Language Trivia, albeit with a slightly different twist.

首っ丈
くびったけ

kubittake

up to the neck


This one is useful when you want to talk about an overwhelming interest that borders on devotion, ESPECIALLY when that interest is in a person of the opposite sex.

Used often (even, defined often) with 夢中, which I'm pretty sure we've covered before.

Saying 「誰か」or 「何かに夢中」 is to say that you are "infatuated" and gets employed when translating what we label, in English, "a crush."

首っ丈, on the other hand, also used with に, does carry the weight of "devotion," so it might be better translated as "to only have eyes for..."

I'm willing to bet you'll get major points when you use it on your significant other, and, if you do have a significant other, try using it as a response to those people who ask about your モテモテ status, like so:

Random Japanese person: ブレットさんはモテモテだろう。
Brett, you must be fighting the ladies off with a stick, right?
Brett: まあ。彼女に首っ丈だから。。。
Actually... I only have eyes for my girl. (so... yes. It's a heavy stick.)

(Artist's rendering of Brett. Pretty faithful.)

3 comments:

jljzen88 said...

You know, I just learned another, similar word. I'm guessing it's giongo/gitaigo. With the exception of Jim Breen, I've seen it mainly written in hiragana:

めろめろ: To have a strong influence on

あいつは飲みすぎて、めろめろだ!
That guy is DEAD drunk.

彼はあの娘にめろめろだぞ。
He's totally crazy about that girl.

jljzen88 said...

PS- Glad to see you guys back up and running!

Defendership said...

heh - I was actually slacking myself. Didn't have a look at this page until today. I am haunted by its accuracy - I thought a mirror had been installed into my monitor...