名前の重要性と音
英語でサイエンスしナイト!
英語でサイエンスしナイト!
英語でサイエンスしナイト!
英語でサイエンスしナイト!
アサミ
アサミ
アサミ
アサミ
Um, so, um, but, uh, yeah, that's, and you've, you've just noted, uh, uh, this, I don't think
is a universal truth, but you'll hear a lot about stresses are at different points in
many words, of course, but in English you have a lot of the stresses that appear like
kind of mid word or like second syllable, this is where you get the conversation about
banana, right? It's not ba-na-na, it's not ba-na-na, it's ba-na-na, right? And so, the
asami, right, it's that three syllable mm-mm-mm, right? So, um, maybe, maybe you just, you picked
up on the rhythm, right, of what sounds most like, like it fits in that moment and you've
apparently picked up that second syllable stressor, right, when you give it in English.
Yeah, but generally speaking, I am thankful for my name because there were other options
to my name as being the firstborn child, my parents thought long and hard about what to
name me and I think asami is the most phonetic one of all the options that they've had, uh,
pretty easy to pronounce in most languages, I think, and, um, and it also doesn't mean,
like, I don't know, crap in, like, Spanish or something. Right, a thing to do is to look
up the general languages you think that a, uh, offspring might end up near and make sure
that their name doesn't sound like something horribly offensive or easily made funnable.
Yeah, I mean, like, my parents did not do that, right, like, they just went with, like,
whatever the pretty normal standard Japanese name that, like, you know, floats their boat.
Yeah, you just got lucky. Yeah, but, like, it just seemed to hit the
jackpot of, um, being unique enough that other people haven't met a ton of asamis, even if
they know a bunch of Japanese people, and, um, it also seems to hit the jackpot of, like,
sounding pretty normal in most languages, like, it doesn't sound too loud of this world,
it seems, and if this Uber driver that I had once upon a time is correct, and I have no
way to fact check this because I'm too lazy, um, is, he has told me that people from Assam
region of India is called asami, it's like with a double S.
Ah, ah, okay, okay. Like, the T, Assam T's Assam, and people from
Assam is Assamese, and that's what he thought my name was.
Okay. Yeah, but it's funny because there are names
that literally means, like, men of France, Francois, or, like, you know, men of Russia,
Ruslan, and, like, that's a thing, that's a thing that people like to name their kids
across many cultures, so. Yep, yep. Whether or not it's known at the time,
right, that there's that root origin versus it's just become, like, a name that they like the sound
of, right, that varies probably, but yeah, they're just, they're just words that mean,
you know, from place, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, um, this is, uh, this is, this is a fascinatingly linguistic discussion,
because then you get into the idea of, like, you know, words not only changing over time,
but basically forgetting the meanings and adding meanings back, or, like, using it for a different
言語の進化と変化
purpose, and as long as it continues to sort of push general meaning along, it works, right?
Like, that's the, I think I've mentioned this probably before, but there's the many cases of,
like, rivers that end up getting called, you know, river, river, or, like, river, river, river,
river, or something, right? Oh, yeah, yeah.
Because, you know, the first word was river, and then they shortened it a little bit,
but then the next generation sort of forgot that it was called river, so they just started
referring to it as other name, and then the river word that they use now, right?
Yeah, yeah. And, like, then those became combined,
and now it's one word for that river, which you can then call that river, nantoyu kawa,
right? Like that, you just keep adding them together, so.
Yeah, it's the chai tea latte effect.
Yeah, exactly, right, right, right, right.
It's like chai means tea, tea means tea, latte means, like, with milk, I think.
Yeah, oh, right, yeah, yeah, that's probably it, so.
Yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, when I think about it, it helps me to feel more relaxed about
using language, at least sometimes. I'm just kind of like, well,
I can get really hung up on the weeds in, like, rhetorical analysis, and, like, the meaning behind
the way people are framing things. That's, I still think that's really important, but also
getting hung up in an ideology that one word only has one thing or one meaning, that,
not so much, right? That, I think, relaxes out when you realize words
are a little bit more challenging than that, but it's also okay. People will figure it out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I just have to make a note that I love how we start recording
saying, we're going to talk about this one thing, and then end up talking about something entirely
different, but hey, you landed us to, like, a very philosophical and deep point, I think,
about how one should not feel sort of restricted in the use of language, because language use or
word use have always evolved. It has never been fixed, and you can just comment the grammar Nazi
to be like, hey, you might be right in this modern English, but, you know, what do you say?
Like, it's not like you don't know that I was talking in medieval English.
You're also, you're probably right for about two decades, and then the next generation pops around,
and they totally do whatever they want with it, so. I mean, like, we're witnessing that in, like,
our lifetime easily, right? Like, just think about how many new slangs Gen Zs have came up with that
is confusing to anyone other than Gen Zs, but, you know, after a while, some of them sticks,
and, like, it's fine. You have mentioned something, which I will leave as an exercise
for the listeners to go and find once I find the title of it. How's that? Oh, there is a New York
Times piece. I think it's by John McWhorter, who is sort of their, like, resident linguist guy,
resident sort of socio-cultural. He'll make commentary on things, which I can find
interesting and sometimes varied. I need to find it, though, because I want to just read
スラングと文化の相互作用
maybe a small section of it. So, this is by John McWhorter. It's an opinion piece, right? So, he does
a lot of these pieces, usually around language or something, and let me just read you the title,
okay? Okay. So, the title is Chat, I Finally Clocked Why Biggie Ate That Meme. Oh, yeah.
Just sit with it for a second. I'll read it again. So, Chat! I Finally Clocked Why Biggie
Ate That Meme, again, by John McWhorter. All right, well, now we know what to look for.
This is for people to go out of their way to see if they want to find it. The reason I bring it up
is because that title, of course, right, is, like, all slang, right? It's slang on layers that
are the Gen Z layers. It's things coming from different places. So, I don't know how much of
it made sense to you. I only, like, the only ate meme part is the part that made sense to me
somewhat, and I'm not even sure if I have a correct understanding of what it is to ate a meme.
I'm not going to pretend like I think I have a correct understanding. I think what you said,
though, is, like, not sure, right? Like, you have to be within the culture that's using it to get
an idea of how the word is being used. I'll actually bring up a little snippet from here,
because I find it interesting for ate, and this will, this is all connected to the idea of, like,
words and then being transformed. But I want to point out the chat one. So, chat,
you don't really watch any, like, streamers for, like, anything, right? The chat is the chat box.
It's where people who are watching your stream post messages and are communicating with each
other and, like, the streamer. So, chat has become, and this blows my mind, has become a
reference call for essentially everyone. It's like, Mina, Mina-san, everyone, chat. Oh, wow.
So, that blows my mind, because you're not chat. That's not, that's not what's happening,
right? But that's the same, like, they're using it because so much of the communication
has been done this way, and it's turned from referencing the chat, because, like,
streamers will reference the chat to reference the people that aren't there in the room,
to, like, referencing the rest of the people in the room or their group, right, or something like
that. Right, right, right. More accurate. So, yeah, that's wild, right? That is mind-blowing.
And also, like, the fact that something as sort of, like, something that has as big of, like,
they're addressing so many people, right? Like, they're addressing a mass of people, like,
unidentifiable mass of people, right? And we typically use everybody, everyone.
We have perfectly good English words that can sit in there, that, like, does not cause any
confusion. But they have come up with the word chat to refer to all the people in the chat box.
And it must be frequent enough for this to become, like, equivalent of everybody. And
the fact that I have had zero participation in any of this my entire 30-odd years of life,
uh, makes me feel like, am I missing out on some, like, a big chunk of what's happening in a world?
言葉の意味と変化
The short answer is yes, right? But is that necessarily good, bad, or neutral? I don't
think so, right? It's just, yeah, there is a whole chunk of the world.
Yeah, apparently I have, like, a complete non-understanding of, like, what seems to be
ubiquitous enough to so many people. Shit. Yeah, it's crazy, right? So, yeah. I feel old.
Yeah, I, you're telling me. I understand.
All right, shall we, shall we, shall we stop here before we start feeling even more old?
Yeah, we can. Let's try and talk about what we initially started to talk.
Let's stop here. We're gonna go back and talk about something that's a little bit simpler. I
will add the ate version just for context. It can also mean to do something really well.
So, the idea of, like, consuming something, like, can be becoming that thing. It can be,
like, really conquering that thing. And that's apparently not, like, an English
specialty, right? It's, it seems to have borne itself into English from some roots that I don't
think are fully explained here. But John McWhorter mentions at least one example,
which I did not go and double check to look up. So if you want to take this up there.
In Ghana, I actually have a colleague that I might be able to ask about this.
Okay, to say I became the captain, right? They're on like the coast.
One way to say that is equivalent to something like, quote, I came and ate captain.
So I think within the language, you're probably using a word that contains both the idea of
consumption and eating of food, but of, it's also of like the being of the of the changing,
right, that transformation. And so that is interesting, right? The kids are using it in
this sort of, quote, here, a similarly diagonal way, end quote. Yeah, you know, not not really
out of the out of the woodwork for language. That's it's not not uncommon. So yeah. All right.
Wow. Well, I think we I think we really ate that episode of zombie. Maybe we should close out here
and say goodbye to chat. We ate. We ate. Yes. I'll I'll clock you next time in the next episode. So
bye. Shut up.
That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us on x at
iego de science. That is E I G O T E S C I E N C. See you next time.
