Language - kusai

May 18, 2007 on 11:10 am | In Language | | Email This Post

Language fun everyone. Let’s talk about KUSAI.

「くさい」 means “stinky”, but if you add the term 「くさい」 to the end of the term to make it mean “seems”, or “has the traits of”.

Some examples of words you can stick 「くさい」to the end of include…

「ばかくさい」stupid

「古くさい」old

「めんどくさい」annoying

「うそくさい」fake (like a lie or sham)

「おじんくさい」old fogey-ish

「年寄りくさい」old fogey-ish

So you could say something like…

「ええ、安過ぎない？うそくさい。」

“Eh, isn’t that a bit too cheap? I don’t believe it (seems like a lie).”

It can also literally mean “smells of” if you say something like…

ガスくさい (smells like gas) or 汗くさい (smells like sweat).

There are other forms as well such as…

まじめくさってる which means someone who is so serious they have become boring or no longer interesting.

Here is one that is interesting.

「うさんくさい」 shady, fishy

The interesting thing about this, is that these days most people do not know what a 「うさん」is. Written in Kanji it is 「胡散」and it won’t show up in Breen or ALC online dictionaries. In the 広辞苑 Japanese-Japanese dictionary it is described as something that is 「あやしい」 or 「疑わしい」which means “shady” or “doubtful”.

It seems like a noun though.. I wonder what the background of 「胡散」is…

「胡」means… “ebisu”… Or the piece of skin that hangs from the bottom of an animals neck. (Say what?) It can also mean 「でたらめ」which means “nonsense”. Or 「命が長い 」, 「長生き」which means long life. (huh?)

「散」means to scatter.

I don’t get it. Why does 「胡散」mean “shady”?

That was a little geeky now wasn’t it…- Harvey

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7 Comments »

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  1. Gravatar

    I don`t know the answer myself, but I have a guess. I know that 出鱈目detarame can also mean non-orderly/ out of whack (usually using those other kanji, though), which seems to match the meaning of the other kanji (散to scatter). Then it would roughly match up with English when we say a something (i.e., a theory) is `shaky` or `unfounded`

    Comment by R — May 18, 2007 #

  2. Gravatar

    I tried looking it up in a Chinese dictionary, and it didn’t come up (although that doesn’t necessarily mean the word doesn’t exist). But FYI, 胡 is defined as “recklessly, foolishly; wildly.” That could be related to being shady or doubtful? Here are some relevant 胡 examples (ok, ok, so Chinese is a different language, but still):

    胡來 胡来 hú lái (v) make a complete hash of things; cause trouble
    胡說八道 胡说八道 hú shuō bā dào (adj) babbling; (n) nonsense; blather; guff; waffle; (vi) blather; haver
    胡思亂想 胡思乱想 hú sī luàn xiǎng imaginings; let one’s imagine run away with one

    Comment by Grace — May 18, 2007 #

  3. Gravatar

    Rikaichan is saying “barbarian, foreign” for 胡 and “scatter, disperse, squander” for 散.

    So maybe its origins are from when foreigners started spreading across Japan? :>

    Comment by Heather Meadows — May 19, 2007 #

  4. Gravatar

    Um… えびす is one of the 名乗り readings for 胡, used only in names. If えびす can mean skin hanging from an animal’s neck, that’s very interesting, but I don’t think it has anything to do with 胡. Heather is right about 胡 having a connotation of “foreign” (eg. 胡座をかく, to sit cross-legged or “Indian style”), but even the Japanese aren’t sure how “scatter” fits in.
    …
    One site speculating on the etymology tells the very colorful story of how, in 16th century Persia, there was a substance scattered on food like a spice which caused a drug-like effect similar to drinking alcohol. It was nice in small doses, but some people (of course) abused it, and this turned into a huge social issue. Thus, if someone smelled strongly of this substance, they were considered a suspicious person. The Japanese apparently agreed that smelly drug abusers were no good, so they coined this word just for them. Two other theories, given considerably less attention but sounding more likely, are that it had something to do with doubts about the Portuguese whom Japan was trading with, or that it belongs to the history of the Warring States Period.
    …
    In other words, no one has the slightest clue how it came about. ^_^

    Comment by Michael — May 21, 2007 #

  5. Gravatar

    I like the smelly drug abusers story!

    Comment by Heather Meadows — May 21, 2007 #

  6. Gravatar

    This post has a pretty good research into the origin of “胡散”.

    http://gogen-allguide.com/u/usankusai.html

    After going through several possible explanations, including a kind of tea cup, the site believe it was a Japanese-made kanji compound, since the “u” is a Tang Dynasty sound while the “san” is a Han Dynasty pronunciation. That kinda make sense to me.

    However, although the article found it dubious, I thought that the Chinese medical term made sense. “San” is a term for a powdery oral medicine. A very popular throat medication in Japan is still called “Ryukakusan” (San made from dragon horn), since it was based on a Chinese formula. Combine “胡”’s most popular definition which is “foreign”, the term 胡散 literally means “foreign medicine”, which of course in terms of a sino-centric world is by default suspicious.

    胡 in fact is the last name of many, many Chinese of Central-Asian or Turkish decent. When they decide to stay in China they usually have to pick a Chinese last name. Many of them choose “胡” to denote their foreign origin. If you know a Chinese friend with that last name, chances are his ancestors were not Han Chinese.

    Comment by ibitoshi — May 29, 2007 #

  7. Gravatar

    That’s a fascinating site. Thanks for sharing the link!

    Comment by Michael — May 29, 2007 #

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