4 Responses to “じゃがいも ≠ ポテト (Updated)”

1. Matt Says:
   June 19th, 2009 at 10:57 am

   Plus, not only are いも raw, they aren’t even the same tuber! (Without a modifier like じゃが (for Jakarta!) or 男爵 (after Baron Kawada who developed or imported this variety for Hokkaido colonists to make IIRC).

   It’s when people start pronouncing 男爵 “jaga” that things get really awesome.

2. Daniel Says:
   June 20th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

   Whoa, that is a sweet way to read those kanji. Wikipedia Japan seems to confirm that imo is a broader category that includes potatoes?　http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%84%E3%82%82　Stil, point noted and post updated.

   This also gives me a chance to link to these potato-related classic no-sword posts that traumatized me:
   http://no-sword.jp/blog/2007/03/heh-heh-space-potato.html
   http://no-sword.jp/blog/2007/04/heppoko-space-potato-returns.html

3. Daniel Says:
   June 20th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

   It also occured to me that Harold Isaacson (http://neojaponisme.com/2009/02/10/transliterating-shiki/) might be able to write a sweet reggae haiku starting with “jagaimo ya”.

4. Matt Says:
   June 21st, 2009 at 2:15 pm

   Yeah, it’s about markedness and non-markedness. Technically an English “potato” is inside the “imo” class, but if you just say “imo”, the assumption is that you mean what we call a “sweet potato”. (And conversely I guess in English, a “sweet potato” is in the “potato” class, but if you just say “potato” people will assume you mean “jaga-imo”.) Another good pair to illustrate this is “tea” and “cha”.

   That picture of heppoko farting is probably the most popular thing I ever posted.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website