Most of us have the nasty habit of treating language as a static, unchanging thing. As online slang teaches us every day now, however, nothing could be further from the truth. One Japanese novelist learned that recently when her proofreader let her know (subtly) that her way of describing telephones was showing her age!
From “Gachan” to “Putsun”
The author in question is mystery and romance writer Yoshikawa Eri (吉川英梨). Her most recent series, New Tokyo Coast Guard Detectives (新東京水上警察; shin-toukyou suijou keisatsu), follows a temporary unit of detectives assigned to the Coast Guard that’s meant to keep Tokyo safe ahead of the 2020 Olympics.
Yoshikawa’s latest manuscript is currently in editing. And recently, she got a piece of feedback she had to admit contained a stinging truth.
The line in question in Yoshikawa’s manuscript is:
電話はガチャンと切れてしまった。
[He/she] hung up the phone with a clang [gachan].
That caught the attention of her eagle-eyed reviewer, who wrote in the margin: “You mean a ‘click/snap’ (putsun)? It’s a cell phone.”
Only Showa-Eras Phones Go “Gachan”
Some couldn’t figure out how to turn the dial on the rotary phone. Others tried to press the holes in the dial as if they were buttons.
Ever the good sport, Yoshikawa aired her embarrassment for all the world to see on Twitter. “My reviewer’s spot on. A Showa bad habit.”
“Showa” is a reference to Japan’s now-seemingly distant Showa era, which encompassed the reign of Emperor Hirohito from 1926 until 1989. It’s also short-hand these days for anything that feels particularly old and crusty. “Showa-ppoi” (昭和っぽい) is a kind way of saying, “That’s fairly ancient.” (A less polite way would be to say something is “Showa-kusai” (昭和臭い), or “reeks of Showa.”)
A series of interviews by news station FNN seemed to bear out that analysis. Interviewees in their 30s and under described the action as an onomatopoeia closely related to putsun, such as putsuri or butsutto. The split could clearly be seen in one couple where the husband was in his 30s and the wife was in her 40s (roughly the boundary between Showa and the succeeding Heisei era). He answered puchi, whereas she immediately went with gacha.
In an even funnier bit, FNN showed some young people in their 20s an old rotary phone (kurodenwa; “black phone”) and asked them to try operating it. Some couldn’t figure out how to turn the dial. Others tried to press the holes in the dial as if they were buttons.
Yoshikawa – who’s 43 years old and was, indeed, born in the 53rd year of the Showa era – told FNN that she’s caught herself using more than a few anachronisms in her stories. One notable example: using the word makimodose (巻き戻せ, rewind) when referring to a CCTV camera recording – even those there’s nothing anymore to maku (wind) since all CCTV cameras are digital.
As someone in his 40s, I’ve found myself falling victim to the same thing. I’m pretty sure I occasionally refer to television, for example, as “the tube.”It’s practically been since the Ice Age that anyone manufactured cathode-ray tube TVs. Fortunately, old folks like Yoshikawa and myself have subsequent generations standing by to remind us just how ancient we are.
It makes you wonder: What descriptions do we take as commonplace now that will seem antiquated in 40 years?
