Definitions Jisho Doesn't Tell You About

So, uh… Calling a person an octopus is an insult in Japan.
Who knew? Honestly never saw that coming, there’s nothing about octopus that makes me think “haha now THAT would be an insulting animal to call someone”, especially when they’re so delicious.
The word is タコ, just so you know.

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It’s not in monolingual dictionaries I briefly checked either. To be fair, lots of stuff you see in English would need to be checked in urban dictionary.

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Would you say calling someone an octopus in English would be a compliment or an insult?

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I think that depends on context.

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It’d just sound silly to me, or just being stupid for the sake of being stupid.

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Context is everything. I don’t know of a use for “octopus” per se but there is “squid” among motorcyclists, which is a bit of an insult for people who act stupid and/or don’t wear protective gear.

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When I hear someone called an octopus in English it would mean “clingy” to me (because lots of arms), like if someone called their significant other an octopus if they are always hanging on them.

Whether that’s good or bad depends on how much you like someone clinging to you, I guess. :laughing:

“You’re an octopus.” Nope, can’t see that being a real insult. They must have made it up. :slight_smile:

Strangely enough, this is one of those words I couldn’t get the voice recognition on Rocket Japanese to register. It’s pronounced just like English “taco”, but it wouldn’t register my pronunciation as correct no matter what I did. It’s one of the reasons I kinda drifted away from Rocket Japanese (though I paid for all 3 levels, ugh).

I knew about it, but it doesn’t come from the animal! It’s from たこ坊主.

From google image:

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Pfft. I wouldn’t be able to take someone calling me an octopus seriously.

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It’s nothing to do with this octopus, right? ^ ^>

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Most interesting fact of the day award - goes to you @yamitenshi! :tada: :clap:

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Probably about as weird as calling someone an egg.

:wink:

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The English version of taco, at least in American accent (idk what yours is obviously), is going to sound more like たこう or たあこう than たこ. Out of curiosity I just tested with Windows Speech Recognition and every time I said (たこ) it typed タコ. Saying “taco” on the other hand got me responses including a confused nothing, 高男(たかおとこ) and 宅老所(たくろう) but not a single タコ.

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蛸坊主(たこぼうず)の意味 - goo国語辞書 also says 「蛸入道 (たこにゅうどう) 」に同じ, and that definition says 僧または坊主頭の人をあざけっていう語, that is, it’s used to ridicule close-cropped or shaven hair.

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Yeah I suppose they’re not exact, but I’m pretty sure I was pronouncing it correctly. The thing is that Rocket Japanese’s speech recognition actually has issues with short sounds when they’re all by themselves, including particles. It’ll have no trouble picking up that your pronunciation is correct in a sentence, even with the difficulty on the highest setting.

Anyway I haven’t been using it lol. It’s a good enough platform, but I get distracted and can’t stay in one place so I’m just using WaniKani and Bunpro at the moment.

(Plus their forum is basically a ghost town… it can take days to get a response to something. I get a lot more help on Duolingo’s forum and on here.)

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I’ve heard my husband calling my dog “tako inu” once. At the time my dog kept constantly barking for almost an hour at some extremely annoyed workmen who was fixing a bathtub leak at the time (everyone had a headache!). I was picturing an octopus dog as a strange new creature and thought it was a strange insult. :grin:

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Can confirm. No where in the definition of ‘walnut’ do I see “extremely idiotic person who has just done or said something really stupid”.

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compliment if you say it to a drummer :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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It’s listed in 大辞林 as a condescending way of referring to a monk, so I guess one might be able to extrapolate something from there. It’s a reference to their head shape. (I’ll try to give Naphthalene’s article a read for a clearer explanation of the general use if I have the time.) Unfortunately 大辞林 isn’t online anymore.

@bonkaholic Actually, a pretty decent source for ‘Urban Dictionary’-style slang definitions is the Pixiv dictionary. Plus, the language used is usually more polite than the language in Urban Dictionary. :joy:

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