The "What's this word/phrase?" thread

TheTrueBlue Member

From: NY Registered: 2009-07-08 Posts: 310

Tzadeck wrote:
TheTrueBlue wrote:
Does anyone know what 七色のキノコ refers to? Neither Google Images, Google, or dictionary-related resources appear to turn up any definitive answers. Additionally the expression to have an 頭の中に七色のキノコが這入ること?
Any context for this? Might make it easier.

The context is that of a casual yet obtuse attempted explanation regarding how routines and sub-routines in programming plays out using the metaphor of fairies (being the subroutine) protecting nesting birds in a tree (being the main routine) against a lion stalking below (representing possible mishaps in the process).

頭の中に七色のキノコが這入ること? is a sarcastic response to this admittedly メルヘン-esque description.

A google search for "七色のキノコ" with quotes shows the phrase is definitely in use (very frequently accompanied by numerous "w"s indicating laughter) although possibly as an obscure cultural or folklore reference of some kind?

Zarxrax Member

From: North Carolina Registered: 2008-03-24 Posts: 949

マイブーム anyone?
This seems like one of those weird phrases that was taken from English, but doesn't actually make sense in English...
Of course I see the definition in rikaichan, but... where the heck did this come from? What is the precise meaning behind it?

Tzadeck Member

From: Kinki Registered: 2009-02-21 Posts: 2484

It comes from phrases like "Recently the popularity of Korean music is booming." or "Business is booming."

So, the idea comes from this: if things are big at the moment, they are 'booming.' So, if you say 'my boom', it means what is big for you at the moment.

Of course, in Engish it doesn't work.

Last edited by Tzadeck (2011 November 01, 11:22 pm)

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nadiatims Member

Registered: 2008-01-10 Posts: 1676

it's マイ (my) + ブーム (boom).
マイ is used pretty frequently in Japanese to mean 自分の, it actually doesn't mean my. At starbuck they have a sign saying something like "bring my cup" meaning bring your own personal cup. Also マイカー is very common.

Harpagornes Member

From: Aotearoa Registered: 2011-07-08 Posts: 119 Website

TheTrueBlue wrote:
Does anyone know what 七色のキノコ refers to?...

Appears to be a character in the game Carry Story. Originally the name seems to derive from a folk tale.

No idea of the colloquial meaning... "gold at the end of the rainbow"...? Or could it be TheTrueBlue Meanie? Now that would be quite a coincidence.

We await someone with superior knowledge of this subject

From the website:
探索開始時
七色に輝くキノコを探しに行こう!
探索中
探しても探しても見つからない
探索完了
雨上がりの虹の根本に、七色キノコを発見した!
http://cs.gamedb.info/wiki/?seek%2FID51

Last edited by Harpagornes (2011 November 02, 5:18 am)

SammyB Member

From: Sydney, Australia Registered: 2008-05-28 Posts: 337

Having trouble working out this sentence. It's from an article talking about uni students these days...

私語やノートの貸し借りが横糸なら、要領のよさは縦糸の関係」という。

My dictionaries show 横糸 and 縦糸 as basically what the kanji literally mean: horizontal thread and vertical thread on like a loom or something. Huh?!

Is this some sort of idiomatic usage?

TheTrueBlue Member

From: NY Registered: 2009-07-08 Posts: 310

Harpagornes wrote:
TheTrueBlue wrote:
Does anyone know what 七色のキノコ refers to?...
Appears to be a character in the game Carry Story. Originally the name seems to derive from a folk tale.

No idea of the colloquial meaning... "gold at the end of the rainbow"...? Or could it be TheTrueBlue Meanie? Now that would be quite a coincidence.

We await someone with superior knowledge of this subject

From the website:
探索開始時
七色に輝くキノコを探しに行こう!
探索中
探しても探しても見つからない
探索完了
雨上がりの虹の根本に、七色キノコを発見した!
http://cs.gamedb.info/wiki/?seek%2FID51

Thank you very much. "Gold at the end of the rainbow" certainly does seem to fit some of the uses of the phrase 七色のキノコ that come from google results.

mygbmygb Member

Registered: 2009-05-26 Posts: 45

any difference between the verbs ぶつかる　and はねる　when it comes to
車にぶつかられる　and 車にはねられる

Last edited by mygbmygb (2011 November 04, 12:50 pm)

pm215 Member

From: UK Registered: 2008-01-26 Posts: 1354

SammyB wrote:
Having trouble working out this sentence. It's from an article talking about uni students these days...

私語やノートの貸し借りが横糸なら、要領のよさは縦糸の関係」という。

My dictionaries show 横糸 and 縦糸 as basically what the kanji literally mean: horizontal thread and vertical thread on like a loom or something. Huh?!

Is this some sort of idiomatic usage?

It's just weaving being used as a "both these things are important" metaphor, I think. If you don't have the warp (vertical thread) but only the weft (horizontal thread) then you don't have a piece of cloth, you have a pile of thread on the floor under your loom :-)
(Another random bit of analogy along these lines found via google: 男は縦糸、女は横糸。)

Not the only metaphor you can draw with this, incidentally; in http://www.maemuki.org/archives/51933799.html the 縦糸 are the vertically integrated governmental and official organisations, and the 横糸 are the peer-to-peer informal links of social media.

Ella_chan New member

From: Sydney Registered: 2011-11-02 Posts: 1

皆様、始めまして。恵良です。

I'm sortof new to this - I got up to 1000 with RTK last year and quit. I'm starting again now
Wondered if anyone could help me with a little vocab question.
I'm currently learning the use of kiku - not as in to ask/enquire/hear, but 利く・効く - to work, to function well,to be possible to use.

For example:
手が利く　To be able to use your hand
顔が利く　To be able to "use" your face (e.g. you have a famous or well-known face, so you get a special discount in a store, etc.)
気が利く　To be good at sensing others' needs

But ... what in the world do these mean?:
鼻が利く
洗濯が利く
見通しが効く

よろしくお願いします！＾－＾

恵良ちゃん

mekkanare New member

From: WI, USA Registered: 2011-08-10 Posts: 9

I too am a bit confused.
I made a post on Lang-8 earlier in the day, and after correcting they responded with this:
"このゲームは昔、PCのゲームでやったことがあります。
またやってみたくなりました。"

The article is about Magic: The Gathering, so I'm curious if I'm understanding it right. Is he saying that the game is old and people play PC games now? If so what does he mean by ( I think ) "Now, try it again" at the end?

The journal entry is here: http://lang-8.com/304968/journals/1173980

SomeCallMeChris Member

From: Massachusetts USA Registered: 2011-08-01 Posts: 787

mekkanare: 「このゲームは昔、PCのゲームでやったことがあります。
またやってみたくなりました。」
I've played this game on the PC a long time ago. I've come to want try it again.

Check out your ことがある and てみる set phrases in your favorite grammar resource and it should come together. (Along with remembering that the default 'subject' when undeclared is the speaker, not the listener. As an aside, Number one reason keigo makes sense: honorific terms tell you the subject has changed from speaker to listener )

Ella-chan:
鼻が利く: To have a good sense of smell. (Nose is effective). Used literally for, say, bloodhounds, and metaphorically for people who are good at finding things out.

The others I don't really know, but if you see them in context, remember that the verb essentially means 'to be effective', or more naturally in many cases 'to be good at (its task)'. What 洗濯 is good at I can't imagine... cleaning? being clean? or being in need of cleaning?

Last edited by SomeCallMeChris (2011 November 08, 12:19 am)

mekkanare New member

From: WI, USA Registered: 2011-08-10 Posts: 9

Ah, thanks a lot!

Onelove_yo Member

Registered: 2011-11-08 Posts: 28

Hey guys,

I came across this sentence in the Core2K deck and I'm a little confused about it:

お酒は大人になってから。
You can drink alcohol when you're an adult.

I think it's the なってから part that gets me. I figure it's just the て form of なる＋　から, but I dunno... both the entire sentence and the translation just feel awkward.

If someone could give me a bit of an explanation as to what exactly is going on in the sentence and possibly an alternate translation that would really help.

Thanks!

Tori-kun このやろう

Registered: 2010-08-27 Posts: 1193 Website

Onelove_yo wrote:
お酒は大人になってから。
You can drink alcohol when you're an adult.

Nothing else besides this sentence? (Context-depended, seemingly)
Correct me if I'm wrong but I guess this is 成ってから "After you become". なる means "to become" and using から after the te-form means "after something". I guess the から has not a "because" function at the end of the sentence in your example :)

You can drink alcohol when you're an adult. = After you become an adult [but not know], you can drink alcohol.

pudding cat Member

From: UK Registered: 2010-12-09 Posts: 497

Ella_chan wrote:
But ... what in the world do these mean?:
鼻が利く
洗濯が利く
見通しが効く

よろしくお願いします！＾－＾

恵良ちゃん

洗濯が効く refers to something being washable as opposed to having to be dry-cleaned etc.

見通しが効く　means to have a a clear view of something, a place/situation where a clear view is possible

Last edited by pudding cat (2011 November 08, 10:42 am)

nadiatims Member

Registered: 2008-01-10 Posts: 1676

Onelove_yo wrote:
Hey guys,

I came across this sentence in the Core2K deck and I'm a little confused about it:

お酒は大人になってから。
You can drink alcohol when you're an adult.

I think it's the なってから part that gets me. I figure it's just the て form of なる＋　から, but I dunno... both the entire sentence and the translation just feel awkward.

If someone could give me a bit of an explanation as to what exactly is going on in the sentence and possibly an alternate translation that would really help.

Thanks!

verb て + から means after verbing. Example:
食べてから皿洗いする
I'll do the dishes after eating.

So the more literal break down of your sentence is:

Alcohol, (you) (drink/buy) (it) after becoming an adult.

Onelove_yo Member

Registered: 2011-11-08 Posts: 28

Ah, ok. I guess my problem was taking てから to mean "and because" and trying to make that fit the translation. I've never heard of verbてから meaning after verbing... I guess that's something I'll have to watch out for now.

Also, Tori-kun, no, there was no context at all.

Thanks, both of you.

vix86 Member

From: Tokyo Registered: 2010-01-19 Posts: 1469

これでもないよりましだ。

Is this まし the same as 増す?

Last edited by vix86 (2011 November 08, 10:50 pm)

Tzadeck Member

From: Kinki Registered: 2009-02-21 Posts: 2484

vix86 wrote:
これでもないよりましだ。

Is this まし the same as 増す?

Yeah, it appears to be. 広辞苑 and 明鏡　both list the kanji for まし as 増し, and have entries that show both the meaning of 'an increase' and 'better off' within the same entry

It kind of makes sense. "This is an increase when compared to nothing" has come to mean "This is better than nothing."

(Btw, I was writing this under the impression that vix86 already understood the meaning of まし in the sentence, and was just wondering if it came from the verb 増す. I would have phrased this a lot differently otherwise. Hopefully I was right in my assumption?)

Last edited by Tzadeck (2011 November 09, 12:37 am)

yudantaiteki Member

Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

Most of the time まし means "better, but still bad" (the context of ないよりまし makes that clear but other times it's not so clear).

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2011 November 09, 12:10 am)

Nagareboshi Member

From: Austria Registered: 2010-10-11 Posts: 569 Website

I would need a translation for the following sentence. 人類にとって古い犯罪になるとはいえ、バブル経済崩壊後に頭をもたげた陰湿な毒の花。

And an explanation for this one　お行儀よく列に並ぶゆきだるまたち。 I can read it, but what is its real meaning? Above the sentence is a photo of a zoo and a lion cage, and this was not very helpful in figuring it out on my own somehow.

The source is: http://blog.hokkaido-np.co.jp/mabushi/archives/2008/01/
The article name is: 行列ができるATM

bcrAn Member

From: 名古屋 Registered: 2011-04-29 Posts: 244

What is the reading of the following sentence?
5月3日は祝日だ。

yudantaiteki Member

Registered: 2009-10-03 Posts: 3619

bcrAn wrote:
What is the reading of the following sentence?
5月3日は祝日だ。

ごがつみっかはしゅくじつだ

pm215 Member

From: UK Registered: 2008-01-26 Posts: 1354

Nagareboshi wrote:
I would need a translation for the following sentence. 人類にとって古い犯罪になるとはいえ、バブル経済崩壊後に頭をもたげた陰湿な毒の花。

These things are usually more interesting if you say what it was you didn't get about the sentence.

And an explanation for this one　お行儀よく列に並ぶゆきだるまたち。 I can read it, but what is its real meaning? Above the sentence is a photo of a zoo and a lion cage, and this was not very helpful in figuring it out on my own somehow.

The source is: http://blog.hokkaido-np.co.jp/mabushi/archives/2008/01/
The article name is: 行列ができるATM

The date of that blog post is 2008-01-15 but the EXIF data in the photo of the lion says it was taken 2008-07-13. I suspect the blog owner has managed to get their image links messed up somehow, or overwrote the original image with one for a later post by accident. Indeed the same lion photo appears on the 2008年07月28日 blog post with a caption that matches the photo, so probably the image filename was accidentally reused. I assume the original photo for the January blog really was a row of snowmen...

Index » The Japanese language

Tzadeck wrote:

TheTrueBlue wrote:

TheTrueBlue wrote:

Harpagornes wrote:

TheTrueBlue wrote:

SammyB wrote:

Onelove_yo wrote:

Ella_chan wrote:

Onelove_yo wrote:

vix86 wrote:

bcrAn wrote:

Nagareboshi wrote: