CERTAIN POLITICAL DISCOURSE OF LATE would profit from an underground dictionary (not to say a mouth-washing). And wouldn’t you know, I have such a dictionary to offer: アンダーグラウンド辞典. It was assembled by Japanese crowd-sourcing back in 1971 before the term was current: “Japanese underground slang words,” editor Katsuaki Horiuchi explained, “have been provided by over 7000 students and/or informants [this latter, a telling identifier?].”
A Note on Methodology. “This Japanese edition,” Horiuchi-sama wrote, “is mainly intended for the Japanese audience. However, since it includes English definitions, it may be used by foreign readers as well.”
Clik here to view.
A sample.
In gleaning these tidbits, I devised the following Google Translate-aided methodology: Here, each English word is followed by its Japanese equivalent and English definition. In some cases, I transliterated the Japanese directly from the dictionary to Google Translate’s Handwriting feature. (It helped to recall the character stroke order from my fledgling study of the language.) This feature also gave me Japanese character renderings for my entries.
With some of the entries, the dictionary’s lengthy Japanese definition challenged me. With these, I used Google Translate of the English word to give me its Japanese rendering.
A Note on Prudence. Just as with the English-language online Urban Dictionary, The Underground Dictionary has a fair measure about drugs, racism, other mayhem, and lots of street-term sexuality. I’ve chosen to omit the more explicit of these—though a few are just too linguistically entertaining to ignore.
Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow, are a selection of terms that perhaps have survived the half-century. (I kept encountering good ones….)
Clik here to view.
アンダーグラウンド辞典 The Underground Dictionary, by Eugene E. Landy, Ph.D., translated and re-edited by Katsuaki Horiuchi, Kenkyuaki Ltd, Toyko, 1971.
Age of Aquarius 水瓶座の時代. An astrological epoch of freedom, peace and brotherhood.
Yes, apparently the kids of Japan got into this too.
Alice B Toklas アリス·B·トクラス. A brownie with marijuana baked in it.
This one contains something of a cultural puzzle. Japanese homes were not known for ovens (one reason for KFC’s instant popularity there), so how to make ABTs?
amp エレキギタ. An electrically amplified guitar.
This one reminds me of the cute pig-tailed trio of OshGosh B’gosh denin-overalled young ladies that I saw performing at one of the Sunday Yoyogi Park musicales. Their hand-made sign read (in English) “Loose Bowels.”
go-go ゴーゴー. Of rock ’n’ roll dancing and music performed at discothèques or similar places.
Somehow the Japanese characters fit the moves better than ours.
We’ll continue this linguistic fun in Part 2 tomorrow. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024
