表現 Break: 衣ばかりで和尚はできぬ

ころも　ばかり　で　おしょう　は　できぬ
koromo bakari de oshou ha dekinu

Get ready for a link festival!

Today's expression is an old one; you can tell by the way they turn できない into できぬ, an archaic form of negation which only survives today in these kinds of expressions (we covered this when we talked about how Japanese people treat cuckoos).

I found this one when I took another look at the site where I got the picture for 十人十色.　

日本のことわざ In English is a great page, and I've added it to the links bar on the left. While its English translations aren't always perfect, the accompanying artwork is engaging, colorful, laugh-out-loud bizarre, and sometimes downright scary. Check the picture for "Well-clothed and fed is well mannered." WTF?

Other than "Ten people, ten colors," you can see their versions of some of our posts, like 猿も木から落ちる、which has a great picture or 七転八起 or 悪事千里 from WAY back when The Daily Yoji was still on it's second post.

Now on to today's expression:

Definition:
うわべだけ綺麗に着飾っても実力が伴ってなければだめの意。
Translations:
Literal - A robe alone does not a buddhist priest make (A hood does not make a monk).
1. The clothes don't make the man.
2. Appearances can be deceiving.
3. A monkey with rings on his fingers is not necessarily a king (Bulgarian proverb, according to my crazy friend Emo).
4. Sticking feathers up your butt don't make you a chicken.

I purposely left off "Don't judge a book by its cover," because this one seems to be designed more to warn the naive about those who affect an appearance without having the substance or to admonish those types directly.

"Book by its cover" always sounded like it had a more positive connotation to me, where the interior had a chance of being more valuable than the exterior led one to believe. This is not the case here.


例文：男となったら、「衣ばかりで和尚はできぬ」と覚えておいた方がいい。ほしいものを手に入れるために、好きなフリする男だって多いし。
When it comes to men, you should remember that appearances can be deceiving. There are lots of men out there who will act like they like you until they get what they want.

疑心暗鬼

ぎしん　あんき
gishin anki

Ya SUSPECT! One of the things that I love about studying Yo-ji-juku-go is the fun of decoding them. I thought I was onto a Tell-tale Heart with this one, but it wasn't what I expected it to be.

Definition:
疑いの気持ちで見ると、なんでもないことまで怪しく思えること。
Translation:
1. Suspicion breeds suspicion.
2. A state of paranoia
3. When you go looking for demons, you'll find them, even if you have to conjure them up yourself

I could've used this one just a week ago, when I got back from India and was convinced that I had malaria after looking up all the symptoms online... or I could use it to describe how I feel about airplanes. Why does every single noise that an airplane makes sound like some kind of mechanical failure?

You could also use it to describe the Japanese mentality towards crime in their country, as this video, and this article at Japan Probe will illustrate. Enjoy.

Crime-fiction
by newsprb

The important point in using this yo-ji is that it's not a matter of a guilty conscience that creates the paranoia, as I first suspected. It's more like the idea of finding a loose pebble on a mountainside and moving cross-country for fear of an avalanche.

例文：
A-san:　最近、彼女が嘘ついていると思う。
I think my girlfriend's been lying to me lately.
B-san: マジで？何の嘘？
Really? Lying?
A-san: 昨日、7-11で寄って来たと言ったけど、Family Martのレシートだった。何か怪しく思わない？で、車のオドメーターを見て、彼女が言ったより遠くまで行っていた。もしかして、昨日は仕事ではなくて、浮気してたかな？そして、違う道を通って帰って、7じゃなくて、Family Martで夕食を買ってきたのかな。
Yesterday, she said she went to 7-11, but the receipt was from Family Mart. Isn't that suspect? Then, I checked her odometer, and she drove farther than she said she did. What if she didn't go to work yesterday? If she was cheating on me, then she would've taken a different road home, and that would explain why she bought dinner at Family Mart and not a 7-11, wouldn't it?
B-san: わー。お前、本当に疑心暗鬼になっているなー！今、Family Martのバイトに遅れているから、後で話そう。
Wow, you're getting really paranoid, huh? We can talk about this more later. Now, I'm running late for my shift at Family Mart.
A-san: お前だ！！！！
IT WAS YOU!!!!!