Sometimes, people tend to use metaphors from arithmetics to refer to something in ordinary life. For example, to mention some claims or preferences common among people, the expression 最大公約数 'greatest common measure' is used even though it is not about numbers. I kind of understand that because there is no immediate counterpart that expresses the corresponding concept for non-numbers. But I don't understand why people say 未知数 'unknown variable' for some non-number that is unknown. There is a word 未知 'unknown' that is related to and is simpler. Why do people say things like これからの情勢は未知数だ instead of saying これからの情勢は未知だ?
Tell me more
×
Japanese Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for
students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. It's 100% free, no registration required.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
This is not necessarily an idiomatic structure. English uses the exact phrase when talking about unknowns. "Candidate X is an unknown variable so anything can happen once he/she enters the race." Mathematical terms tend to be constants (yet another mathematical term) and many are actually co-opted from real world use to talk about mathematics. Alphabets are similarly used such as "crossing your t's and dotting your i's" to indicate finishing up properly, and "teaching him all the steps from A to Z", or referring to God as "the Alpha and the Omega" to indicate all encompassing. In Japanese, such things are "ア から ン". The point is that, these terms are rather similes rather than idiomatic. They tend to be directly comparative rather than obliquely obscure. |
|||||
|
