Re: なんじゃこりゃー

Don Kirkman wrote:
It seems to me I heard somewhere that Phil wrote in article
<1152884130.888322.276250@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

[snip]

巷では大流行りらしく、なんとCDまで
発売されているみたいですが・・・。

Admittedly I've been away awhile* and don't know what's happening in
modern-day Japanese, but in my time I would have come away thinking that
"CDmade hatsubai sareteirumitai desu ga . . ." was more like "it seems
there's even a CD on sale, but . . . ."

* Having left Japan in 1968.

"Hit the stands" to me implies an element of time-when or immediacy that
I don't see in the original.

[snip]

Don Kirkman

I generally like referring to the Kojien, probably the most widely used
Japanese-Japanese dictionary in use today, to to check current usage.
It defines はつ-ばい - 発売 as うりだすこと and
売出し. In turn, the first meanings of うり-だ・す -
売り出す and うり-だし - 売出し are 売りはじめる
(beginning to sell) and 売り始めること - the fact of beginning
to sell. Conversely, if I go to an English- Japanese dictionary in use
by Japanese speakers such as the リーダーズ英和辞典
(Reader's English- Japanese Dictionary) and look up "hit the
stands", I get《俗》 発売される ( [colloquial] hatsubai
sareru) as the sole meaning.

Although 発売される does not necessarily imply immediacy or
launching a product, the fact that it is preceded by なんと (nanto)
depicting wonder or astonishment suggests to me this is the case here.
This is particularly true if you accept Juha Myllari's interpretation
(which I do) that infers the comment is made about a new band that has
become so popular they've even gone so far as to release a CD.

Mata ato de,

Phil Yff

.

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