'talking rather rude Japanese'

[Taro Toporific]

Be warned: we're talking rather rude Japanese
The Japan Times, Oct 25, 2006, by Roger Pulvers
....Japanese soldiers swore a lot. They used the rough second-person personal pronoun kisama when barking orders. On a trip to Jakarta in 1974, I felt sorry for an aging bellhop at the hotel I was staying in. He shouted across the lobby to a Japanese couple whose bags he was carrying, "Oi kisama!" He thought he was saying, "Excuse me, sir and madam!" But what he was really yelling at them was akin to "Hey, you assholes!" Without a doubt, the poor bellhop had learned his Japanese during the war, when his country was occupied by Japan.....

[Greji]

Be warned: we're talking rather rude Japanese"Oi kisama!" He thought he was saying, "Excuse me, sir and madam!" But what he was really yelling at them was akin to "Hey, you assholes!" Without a doubt, the poor bellhop had learned his Japanese during the war, when his country was occupied by Japan.....

That is correct and at about the time you heard him, thanks to the people trying to get rid of any language that resembled the Imperial military, words like "kisama" began either disappearing, or taking on new levels of meaning.

Kisama originally was used as a formal term of address in the imperial language. It also had a kingly or princely meaning at one time. It then began to appear in common speech as "you" at varying levels of usage. Because of the strange statue of military training and rank, kisama was a natural for the military usage. It was used in talking to equals and subordinates and had that great Japanese virtue of vagueness. That way a training NCO or low ranking officer could brow beat a lower rank with a term that had honorable meanings. Just as now days lower ranking people could be on the fast track and soon out-rank their initial NCOs or officers (bosses), therefore the training personnel could not considered guilty of using offensive in-appropriate language and exceeding their position.

If you disect kisama, you can see that it's a great word, or was! Now if you use it, have your guns ready, because when you call that yak kisama, you have in fact called him an SOB or a Mother F**ker and he's going to have a strong urge to correct your Nihongo on the spot!

[Iraira]

On a rudeness scale, which is worse, "kisama" or "teme"?

I'm asking because I just want to be prepared in the event of an actually emergency.

[CrankyBastard]

On a rudeness scale, which is worse, "kisama" or "teme"?

I'm asking because I just want to be prepared in the event of an actually emergency.

Both "kisama" and "teme" have rude intonations depending on how you use them, however in a friendly way they loose the 'rude' edge, as used primarily nowadays by HS kids.
If you really want to piss some guy off, use "an'tta." Unless, of course either, or both of you are gay.

[jingai]

Lopping off the first syllable of a word is one way to transform it into a slang term. So, satsu, from keisatsu, is the rough word to describe the police, equivalent to "fuzz." And the leaving of prison by a yakuza boss is referred to as mushogaeri, where musho is the shortened form of keimusho (prison) and gaeri is from kaeri (homecoming).

Old...

Anyway, an amusing book which really dives into the roots of slang words is Japanese Slang Uncensored:
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Slang-Uncensored-Peter-Constantine/dp/4900737038

It's a pretty fun read and has odd slang, like that of Buddhist monks.

[kamome]

Both "kisama" and "teme" have rude intonations depending on how you use them, however in a friendly way they loose the 'rude' edge, as used primarily nowadays by HS kids.
If you really want to piss some guy off, use "an'tta." Unless, of course either, or both of you are gay.

Yeah, I've heard high school guys saying either "teme" or just "omae", but it was ok because they were buddies. I think most of us FG should never use those terms. We can rarely pull off that kind of language without it sounding forced or strange to the Japanese ear, because "omae", etc. is used in the context of other gruff slangy language that is tough to replicate unless you're a native.

[jingai]

We can rarely pull off that kind of language without it sounding forced or strange to the Japanese ear, because "omae", etc. is used in the context of other gruff slangy language that is tough to replicate unless you're a native.

We'll sound like those Chinese guys (you know who I'm talking about) who keep throwing around words like "fac" and "bu shi" until it sounds comical.

[omae mona]

Yeah, I've heard high school guys saying either "teme" or just "omae", but it was ok because they were buddies. I think most of us FG should never use those terms.

Hmmmph!

[sublight]

Yeah, I've heard high school guys saying either "teme" or just "omae", but it was ok because they were buddies. I think most of us FG should never use those terms.

My FG boss likes to tell this story of his biggest nihongo blunder: back when he was a lowly eikaiwa teacher, his boss's wife used to always speak ridiculously polite Japanese that nobody could understand. When he tried to explain to her that he didn't understand formal grammar, tenei na nihongo ga wakarimasen, he screwed up the pronunciation, telling her teme na nihongo ga wakarimasen.

Luckily for him, an elder FG jumped in and explained what he meant before the old obaa-chan dropped dead from a stroke.

After that, my story of mixing up oshi-ire with oshiri and telling my girlfriend's mom where I stuck my jacket, kind of pales in comparison.

[Iraira]

My best screw-up in Japanese came after a Kansai friend taught me the Kansai greeting mokarimaka. A few days later I walked into the restuarant where she worked and loudly exclaimed, mokori!

Her boss immediately asked "Who has mokori?"

I repeated mokori several more times until another employee took it upon himself to explain that mokori means to pitch a tent in that turgid erecticle way of pitching a tent.

I consider that J-kaiwa experience a two for one kinda deal.

[flotsam]

i've found that using the rudest, dirtiest, most condescending language possible with my wife provides a familiar homey atmosphere in the friendly flotsam household. i wouldn't use many of these terms with people i'm not close to, but the practice has come in handy for those times you get jumped by some murderer determined to bag himself a gaijin that night. strange side effect, incidentally, is erectile disfunction.

[Greji]

handy for those times you get jumped by some murderer determined to bag himself a gaijin that night. strange side effect, incidentally, is erectile disfunction.

I can see where it would be handy, but why would ED come into play? Are you planning on breechloading any murderers, muggers, et al, that jump you?

[Greji]

Sorry Double posted!

[flotsam]

well in my case it's hardly an issue anyway. as my wife told me on her second box of yubeshi and a litre of baileys irish cream, "if i'd wanted a big cock, flotsam, i'd have married a local." such are the cheery nocturnal chats a casa flotsam. at these times i'm usually too busy practicing seppuku using the diagrams kindly sketched by father in law with one of those collapsible stage daggers that everyone has lying around the house somewhere.

[kamome]

Hmmmph!

???