by Kevin Burton
Some of my totally blind friends used to fold dollar bills in certain ways so they would know what denomination they were.
That was before the days of bill reader devices, so I’m not sure anybody does that folding any more. Anyway I used to call that folding that people did origami. It wasn’t of course.
Today we get the real story of origami, one of the English words we get from Japanese. This list is courtesy Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Hunky-dory: quite satisfactory: fine
When you’re safe at “home” in the game of tag, it can be said that “everything’s hunky-dory”—since you can’t be tagged there. The first part of the word hunky-dory is derived from a homograph of hunk, a now-obsolete word of New York dialect meaning “goal” or “home” that has connections to tag.
Hunk is from Dutch honk, meaning “home,” and in the 19th century, both hunk and hunky evolved into adjectives meaning “all right” or “safe and sound.”
How the adjective came to be partnered with dory is a mystery, but one theory is that it was brought to the States by sailors stationed in Japan. Supposedly there was a thoroughfare in 19th-century Japan that sailors frequented and described as being hunky, meaning “satisfactory.” The pronunciation of the Japanese word for “road” is similar to “dory,” and the sailors could have combined the English and Japanese terms as an allusion to the “satisfactory” street.
Anime: a style of animation originating in Japan that is characterized by stark colorful graphics depicting vibrant characters in action-filled plots often with fantastic or futuristic themes
In Japanese, the word anime is a shortening of animēshiyon, which is based on English animation, and refers to animated films and shows from around the world, not just from Japan. When English speakers adopted anime in the 1980s, however, it was as a name to refer to specifically Japanese animation and animation done in a similar style.
Our cosplay readers might be interested to know that in the past anime was the name for a cuirass (a piece of armor covering the body from neck to waist) or its breastplate―a must-have for the medieval or fantasy warrior. The name is of French origin and is more than likely from Italian anima, meaning “life” or “soul”:
Manga: Japanese comic books and graphic novels
Japanese manga is a combination of man-, meaning “involuntary, aimless,” and -ga, “picture.” The first appearance of this word for “involuntary pictures”―or rather, illustrations made impulsively or randomly―is not known, but it seems to have been drawn up in the 18th century.
In the 19th century, it was popularized in its early form mangwa as the title of a collection of sketches by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. The word in the title is meant in its literal sense as the drawings were of random subjects and themes.
In the early-20th century, the Japanese term came to designate comic books, and about mid-century, manga was borrowed into English in that sense. As we see with anime, the Japanese use the term for comic books in general, while English speakers apply it to the meticulously-drawn Japanese comics.
Origami: the Japanese art or process of folding squares of paper into representational shapes
Origami is a compound of two Japanese words, ori, meaning “fold,” and kami, “paper.” The etymology of the word seems straightforward until closer inspection reveals a slight wrinkle: in Japanese, origami was already used to refer to a folded certificate or document of authentication. So why the change?
Earlier Japanese names for the art include orikata, orisue, and orimono. It only came to be called origami in the 20th century, leading some to suggest that its use is linked to Japan’s kindergarten movement in the late-19th century (proposing that the word was easier to spell for schoolchildren). Others point to the fact that the art form was flourishing in other countries and origami was chosen because its base words reflect names like English paper folding and German Papierfalten.
Yakuza:
1) a Japanese gangster
2) an organized crime syndicate in Japan
The name yakuza originates from the Japanese card game oicho-kabu in which the goal is to draw three cards adding up to a value of 9. Like in baccarat, the last digit of any total over 10 is the value of the hand. Thus, the worst possible draw in the game is 8-9-3, which totals 20 and results in 0 for the play. In Japanese, the phonetic spelling of the draw is “ya” (8), “ku” (9), “za” (3). Associating this worst hand with the worst of society, people began referring to Japanese gangsters and racketeers as the yakuza.
Ginkgo: a gymnospermous dioecious tree (Ginkgo biloba) of eastern China that is widely grown as an ornamental or shade tree and has fan-shaped leaves and foul-smelling yellowish fleshy seed coats — called also maidenhair tree
The ginkgo tree was formerly known as the maidenhair tree in reference to the tree’s distinctive fan-shaped leaves. The name ginkgo is from Japanese ginkyō, a word ultimately from Chinese words that translate as “silver apricot.” The second g in English ginkgo is from an erroneous transcription of ginkyō that has been perpetuated in scientific writing. Occasionally, you might encounter a misspelling of the misspelled ginkgo that misunderstands the word as gingko.
The tree is also commonly known by its scientific name: ginkgo biloba. Biloba means “having two lobes,” in reference to the shape of the its leaves.
Tanka, Haiku, and Senryu
Tanka, from Japanese tan (“short”) and ka (“song”), refers to an unrhymed Japanese verse of five lines containing five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables respectively.
Although its name translates as “short song,” it is longer than the more familiar haiku, which has three lines containing usually five, seven, and five syllables respectively.
Another type of Japanese verse is senryu, a 3-line unrhymed poem that is structurally similar to haiku. However, whereas haiku tends to focus on nature and the seasons and usually has a serious tone, senryu tends toward irony and satire, especially about the human condition.
Emoji: any of various small images, symbols, or icons used in text fields in electronic communication to express the emotional attitude of the writer, convey information succinctly, communicate a message playfully without using words, etc.
In the 1980s, emoticons—symbols formed using keyboard characters, like 😉 to indicate a joke or, you know, a wink—were crafted by creative typists. Building on their popularity, computer techs began designing images and symbols to graphically encapsulate the emotion of the emoticon. They became known as emojis, and people have been animating their electronic messages with them since the 1990s.
The name comes from Japanese moji, meaning “letter, character,” and e, based on ancient Japanese ye, meaning “picture, drawing” (not “emotion”).
Sushi: cold rice dressed with vinegar, formed into any of various shapes, and garnished especially with bits of raw seafood or vegetables
Gastronomes of Japanese food know that sushi—a blend of Japanese su (“vinegar”) and meshi (“rice”)—refers to vinegared rice and that a sushi entree only includes raw fish if requested. But the pairing of sushi and raw fish is common, and for many unacquainted with Japanese cuisine, that is what sushi means, “raw fish.” Evidence of this colloquial misuse is not hard to find.
For those looking for a Japanese term for “raw fish,” try sashimi, the Japanese name for just that. It is a combination of sashi (“pierce”) and mi (“flesh”), and although sashimi is not pierced when prepared, it is sliced.
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