Tagged Questions
5
votes
1answer
187 views
Is “豪斯多拉利” an ateji way to write “Australia”?
Several years ago I invested some time and energy digging up more ways to write "Australia" in Japanese than I ever expected would exist:
オーストラリア is the usual spelling these days
濠太剌利 is a rare old ...
9
votes
1answer
253 views
What does さようなら (左様なら) have to do with “left”?
What is the relationship between 左様なら and 左? I assume there's some idiomatic meaning for "left" but how does it fit?
7
votes
3answers
282 views
うるさい written as 五月蝿い
This is a follow-up question to Does うるさい have a "negative" connotation.
I've seen うるさい written as 五月蝿い.
現代では、is this form used often / at all?
What does this have to do with flies (蝿【はえ】) in May? ...
6
votes
2answers
371 views
Significance of the kanji 茶 in the set phrase 滅茶滅茶{めちゃめちゃ} / 目茶目茶{めちゃめちゃ}
While having fun looking up random words in my dictionary software, I found out that the phrase "めちゃめちゃ", which is often used in colloquial sentences like "めちゃめちゃかわいい" has two kanji variants:
滅茶滅茶
...
7
votes
1answer
744 views
Common 四字熟語 that use/are 当て字
Are there any commonly used known 四字熟語 that use/are 当て字 besides the following? Just crossed my mind, and now I'm curious.
滅茶苦茶 (めちゃくちゃ), 夜露死苦 (よろしく), 無理矢理 (むりやり)
12
votes
3answers
568 views
Why is 「昨夜」 pronounced as 「ゆうべ」 {yuube} and 「今日」 as 「きょう」 {kyou}?
「ゆう」 is neither the kun'yomi nor on'yomi of 「昨」 and 「べ」 is not a pronunciation of 「夜」 either. The same can be said about the pronunciation 「きょう」 for 「今日」.
So how come the pronunciations of the two ...
