打打発止

ちょうちょう　はっし
chouchou hasshi

Before we get too much distance between ourselves and last week's 喧々囂々、侃々諤々、喧々諤々 EXPLOSION, I want to take the time to address a legitimate concern that reader Alex addressed in the comments section: that shit was hard.

Not only are the kanji involved ridiculous, but the first two expressions are rarely used in conversation, and the third is actually not even a real yo-ji!

If only there were a good 四字熟語 that meant roughly the same thing, was easy to use, even easier to remember, and contained a kick-ass sword-fighting metaphor... Oh, wait.

Definition:
刀などで互いに打ち合う音。転じで、刀で切り合うように激しくやりあうさま。言い合いのこと。
Translation:
1. A fierce clashing of words, resembling a fierce clashing of swords.

According to the 「四字熟語」これだけ辞典, which we also posted on today, this yo-ji can also be written like so: 丁丁発止. Internet searches reveal tons of examples of both, but since the book lists 打打発止 as the primary form, and the book has the virtue of being ancient, we're gonna use it as well.

丁々, as Rikai-chan will tell you, is the sound of chopping, and also lends itself to the sound of metal on metal. I'd imagine it as more metallic sounding, but then, I've never heard a mouse say ちゅう either. 発止 gets translated as "a loud clack;" the kanji, meaning "halted departure," convey the idea of something in motion (like a sword) coming to a quick, sudden stop (when it hits another sword).

Sounds like 打打発止 could be used in close proximity to one of Brett's earliest posts: しのぎを削る.

例文：そのアメリカ人二人が何を言っているか知りたいな。いつも英語で打々発止の口喧嘩をしているようにみえるのに、本当は仲が良さそうだ。
I wonder what those two Americans are saying. They're always shouting back and forth in English, like they're having a fierce dispute, but I've heard that they're actually really close.

Note:
If you ever have the opportunity to use this in connection with an actual sword fight, feel free. It can work literally as well.

Challenge: If you know who that anime character is at the top, quick, tell me where I can download a copy of that... I'm incredibly embarrassed to admit that it's the ONLY incarnation of that franchise that I haven't seen.

Daily Double: 喧喧囂囂 and 侃侃諤諤

けんけんごうごう　and　かんかんがくがく
kenken gougou and kankan gakugaku

Winding down the week of two-kanji yo-ji, we've got some high-level rare yo-ji with very similar meanings.　We could have made this a triple by including 喧喧諤諤 (けんけんがくがく;kenkengakugaku*), but let me explain why we didn't after the definitions.

喧々囂々
Definition:
多くの人が喧しくいいはやす様子。
Translation:
1. Pandemonius uproar

侃侃諤諤
Definition:
大勢の人ががやがや騒がしい様子。
Translations:
1. Heated arguing
2. Outspoken about one's beliefs (pushing the boundaries of politeness)

While I was planning out the line-up for this week's theme, I asked some of my friends for contributions, and one of them suggested 喧々諤々, but when I looked it up online, I came across a Japanese forum thread where someone was asking why 喧々諤々 doesn't show up in a 国語辞典. I looked it up in my 四字熟語辞典, and I couldn't find it either. One of the commenters in that thread pointed out that the reason it doesn't show up is because it's not a real 四字熟語. While both my Japanese word processing software and Rikai-chan recognize it (defining it as "tumultuous; everyone voicing their opinions at once), the fact of the matter is that it's an oral tradition, a verbal mangling of today's two. Take the first part of one, the last part of the other, and you've made yourself a brand new idiomatic expression.

If you're writing, I recommend using either 喧々囂々or 侃々諤, whichever suits your purposes. But since they're old and rare, if you want to say something in conversation, people today are much more familiar with the amalgamation: 喧々諤々.

You can follow any of these with the verbs する, or 言う to fit it into a sentence, or you can also use になる。

例文s:

その政治家の天下りについてのコメント後、議会が喧々囂々になってしまいました。
After that politician's remarks on the Amakudari system, the Diet erupted into pandemonium.

姑と話す時は政治や宗教のことを侃々諤々するわけないよ。
There's absolutely no cause for heatedly arguing politics or religion when you're talking to your mother-in law.

救助を待つかゾンビたちと戦って逃げるか、どうするかということを皆に相談したら、全員が喧々諤々言ってしまった。アポカリプスってつらいな。
When I asked whether or not we should stay and wait to be rescued, or try to fight our way through the zombie hordes, everyone began shouting their opinion simultaneously. Man, the apocalypse is rough.


* post-post edit, thanks to Sash's watchful eye.

表現 Break: 売る言葉に買う言葉

うる　ことぼ　に　かう　ことば
uru kotoba ni kau kotoba

The great thing about being a foreigner living in Japan is that every interaction is an opportunity to learn something new, even when you're having an argument. Argument is a relative term of course; in America an argument with my ex-girlfriend meant raised voices, and maybe a slammed door or two, followed by extend periods of passive-aggressive behavior. In Japan, I've learned to think of arguments as long, low-key, strained conversations followed by extended periods of passive-aggressive behavior. Who's to say which country does it right?

This expression, which I learned after a long, LONG conversation with my landlord about what to do about all of the furniture that someone has to clear out of my house (he wants me to pay to have it removed and disposed of; I think I shouldn't be responsible for anything that was already there when I moved in), and I'm glad I learned it in that context, because otherwise, I never would've been able to extrapolate the meaning.

I mean, think about it: 売る言葉に買う言葉 (also sometimes expressed as 売り言葉に買い言葉). What does it mean? "Selling words to buying words."

In the context of a conversation, if one person is talking sales and the other is talking purchases, it sounds to me like you've got a transaction on your hands. Everybody's happy, right?

Not so.

Definition:
相手の暴言に対し、こちらも負けず劣らずひどい暴言で返すこと。
Translations:
1. Trading barbs.
2. A bitter back and forth
3. A heated exchange of well-chosen words

Think of the argument as a matter of trade, with both participants engaging in a fair exchange. If one person makes a snide comment, the other person comes back with something equally snide, equally appropriate, and the argument escalates. This would be a good phrase to use when describing a marital squabble or a quarrel between two people who are very well known to each other. The way that 売る言葉 are perfectly tailored to respond to 買う言葉, fits in perfectly with the idea of two people who know exactly how to push each other's buttons.

Online definitions say that an 売り言葉に買い言葉 situation is often described as 喧嘩のタネ: the seeds of a quarrel or a fight.



例文：売り言葉で買い言葉から殴り合いになったみたいだ。
Seems like there was a heated exchange of words that escalated into a brawl.