(The increasingly less) Daily senryu thread

Ooh, I have a theory about that: maybe it’s the husband being grumpy about his wife putting a load of expectation on him by building an imaginary future on a hypothetical future promotion: “if you got a promotion then we could afford to buy a house of our own, with a little garden for our kid, and…” But maybe I’m reading way too much into it :slight_smile:

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たとえばの はなしでかちょうに されたおれ

4-5-4 attempt:

I, who became
a boss, based on a
“For example…”

The meaning is not clear…

Is it that he turned into a boss by his wife pushing him to become one? (She: “For example, if only you could become a boss, we could have XYZ…”)
Or…
did his wishful thinking make him work towards becoming a boss? (He: “For example, if I became a boss, you would not complain about XYZ…”)

I think it is neither…

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Every time I think I understand one of these on first read, I’m inevitably proven wrong (or at least made unsure).

My read was that he was used in a “for example” (of what not to do?) story by his boss.

Truth be told, it made little sense as I read it, and so, I tried to force fit a meaning given the category under which it appears in the source website, viz. 夫編(サラリーマンの悲哀!親父さんに優しくしてあげてね).

I’ve sent it to a Japanese friend. Let’s see if she can make sense of it…

Looking forward to reading what you hear back.

  1. 例えばの話で課長にされた俺

たとえばの・はなしでかちょうに・されたおれ

Instead of just going with my immediate interpretation, I decided to think about it some more and work out the grammar. But I’m still back where I started:

> The chief used me in his “for example” story.

Reasoning:

される is an ichidan verb (為れる but usually written in kana) meaning "to be done (to someone)

課長にされた俺 — something was done to me by the section chief.

例えばの話 — a “for example” story

例えばの話で — in or as part of a “for example story”

Putting it together I get the sentence I wrote above. If it weren’t a senryu, maybe it would have been written something like (おれ)は課長の(たと)えばの(はなし)(れい)になりました?

Hmm. Once again your confusion is hitting me, too (I’m also dipping into the bourbon, though):

課長に任命された means “I was appointed to section chief” which is a very different interpretation.

I still think it’s more like “I was made an example of by my boss” than “I was made the boss as an example”, but I’m now also confused. I think the husbands volume is a red herring (many husbands are salarymen).

Maybe something like: “I was made section chief to be made an example of” (a sort of cautionary story)?

There I was all calm and confident and you had to go ruin it for me. Now I’m as confused as usual!

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Famous last words, eh? :smiley:

And, may I remind you that the 川柳 by itself is confusing enough so that my part, if any, in confusing you any more is negligible? :wink:

Here’s the response I got from my friend:

状況としては、夫婦でなにか将来のこととか話し合っているとして…

妻:「そろそろ我が家もマイホームが欲しいわぁ」

夫:「うーん…そうだなぁ。。」

妻:「でも、今のあなたの収入じゃ無理はできないわね。ローンを組んだとしても返済までに何年かかるのかしら?」

夫:「…」

妻:「例えば、よ。あなたが課長に昇進したら、少しはお給料が上がるかしら?」

夫:「そりゃ、まぁそうだろうけど。でも課長になれるとは限らないよ…」

妻:「分かっているわよ!だから“例えば”の話よ。期待なんかしてないわ!」

夫:「…」

と、まぁこんな夫婦の会話から生まれた川柳だと想像します。サラリーマン夫の悲哀!

Interestingly, this is pretty much exactly @pm215’s interpretation! Give him a double prize!!

Based on the above, my interpretation of the grammar would be:

例えばの話で - By the way of a hypothetical conversation… (cf. 話で by means/because of the conversation)
課長にされた俺 - it was decided that I’d be the boss. (cf. にする = to decide on…)

My confusion was due to 課長にされた, which I took to mean that he had become 課長 in reality. But, the right way to interpret is that he became 課長 only in the conversation, which makes more sense.

So, to put it in a phrase, “[My wife] gave an example during the conversation wherein I was made a boss.” Meaning that’s as far as he’d got to becoming a 課長, :unamused: which accords with the category under which it is listed…

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Monday, July 4, 2022


Previous senryu

  1. 例えばの話で課長にされた俺
    たとえばの はなしでかちょうに されたおれ
    Example just / hypothetical: / “as Section Chief …”

Notes:

  • :confetti_ball: :confetti_ball: to @pm215 (I was right, this one was easy … for exactly one of us :wink: )

  • I love that @LaVieQ’s friend went to the trouble of turning it into a little one-act play! :laughing: Please tell her she gets a :trophy:

  • I took some poetic liberties and it’s no clearer than @LaVieQ’s attempt, but I liked the challenge of incorporating a five syllable word!

  • I’m not sure how anyone would know this was about a couple if it wasn’t in the “Husbands” volume.

  • As @LaVieQ put it: “[My wife] gave an example during the conversation wherein I was made a boss.” Meaning that’s as far as he’d got to becoming a 課長, which accords with the [Husbands] category …

Current senryu challenge

Volume: Children

  1. 「半分こ 上手に割れて姉迷い」

Hint (normal caveats apply — I’ll be right about something one of these days!):

  • I think this is about siblings splitting up a treat. I’m pretty sure the law is universal and strictly enforced: one child splits, the other child chooses.

Remember to please use the spoiler tag with your translation attempts! Also, please include the reading in kana with your submission.

Everyone is encouraged to participate, no matter your level!

Online tools like dictionaries, sentence databases, and even AI translation engines are fair game and can be extremely helpful. Yomichan is particularly handy if you use the Chrome or Firefox browser. The 語源(ごげん)由来(ゆらい)辞典(じてん) is also an excellent resource for researching the etymology of various words and expressions.

Here are the links to the 356 Japanese originals (spoiler free) and to the the spreadsheet with all the upcoming senryu as well as the translations to date.

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I’ll be out of pocket for a bit today picking up my wife from the airport.

I know I’m glad to have her back, but I’m amazed at how many people I know appear to be preparing fireworks in her honor!

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Not sure I should get :confetti_ball: :confetti_ball: for a reply that didn’t even attempt a translation :slight_smile:

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Getting that cursed meaning instantly suffices.

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Have a late entry to make up for it:

In her what-if / she’s made me into / a section chief

(trying to capture the ‘not-happy-about-it’ nuance of 課長にされた, though that’s tricky with the tools English gives you…)

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with the help of Rrwrex’s hint, here is my attempt:

半分こ 上手に割れて姉迷い
はんぶんこ じょうずにわれたあねまよい

The perfectly-split snack
leaves my older sister perplexed

I admit I took a few liberties with this one; there is no subject or mention of snack, but after I came up with the alliteration I couldn’t help myself haha.
Also this time, the syllable count be damned; I really like the flow of this line break.

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はんぶんこ じょうずにわれて あねまよい

3-5-3 take:

My halfsies:
So perfect, sister
is flummoxed

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Tuesday, July 5, 2022


Previous senryu

  1. 「半分こ 上手に割れて姉迷い」
    はんぶんこ・じょうずにわれて・あねまよい
    My halfsies: / So perfect, sister / is flummoxed

Notes:

  • :confetti_ball: to @LaVieQ

  • :trophy: to @tiredkiwi

  • Tough call, but “halfsies” made me grin. I don’t think I’ve heard that since I was eight. (Aaaand just now I see that it’s even the JMdict entry for 半分こ, but it still gets the win.)

  • 半分こ is a childish word for splitting up a treat. The law is universal and strictly enforced: one child splits, the other chooses!

Current senryu challenge

Volume: Ladies

  1. 「何とかいう人から電話と留守の母」

Hints:

Another easy one (famous last words). Nothing past level 16 today, but this Kenkyusha dictionary entry may prove helpful:

なんとか【何とか】 [ローマ字](nantoka)
1 〔不明・不特定なものを表現して〕 something; something or other; anything; 〔人〕 a so-and-so.
►なんとかさん, なんとかいう人 Mr. So-and-So; Mr. What’s-His┏-Name[-Face]; ᐦ《口》 Mr. Thingummy
・なんとか殿下 Prince Somebody-or-other
・佐々木なんとかいう人 Sasaki ┏Somebody [What’s-His-Name]
・あのなんとかいう日和見主義者たち those opportunistic so-and-sos.


Remember to please use the spoiler tag with your translation attempts! Also, please include the reading in kana with your submission.

Everyone is encouraged to participate, no matter your level!

Online tools like dictionaries, sentence databases, and even AI translation engines are fair game and can be extremely helpful. Yomichan is particularly handy if you use the Chrome or Firefox browser. The 語源(ごげん)由来(ゆらい)辞典(じてん) is also an excellent resource for researching the etymology of various words and expressions.

Here are the links to the 356 Japanese originals (spoiler free) and to the the spreadsheet with all the upcoming senryu as well as the translations to date.

なんとかいう ひとからでんわと るすのはは (5-8-5)
3-5-3

Not-at-home
Mom’s note: “dunno-who
called for you”

Not sure of the “川柳 wit” - it maybe as simple as it’s literal meaning that the information from mom was completely useless to the writer.
The “note” in “Mom’s note,” although not in the original, is a stand in for the と in the と留守の母.

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Hmm …

The feeling I got was that mom was avoiding a call: “tell them I’m not here” kind of thing. In this case I thought it was that she magically never seems to be around whenever so-and-so calls.

Since there is no mention of a note, I didn’t think the と was quoting anything. I thought it was just setting the context (this happens and that happens: すると or in this case あると vs. 『◯』と).


Though now that I think about it more, I think I’m leaning toward your interpretation.

You may be right that it’s quoting a useless note. I was confused why the mom was 留守, but she wasn’t out when the call happpened, she is out now and the author is reading a useless note.

My wife is back, so I can ask her when she’s free.

Wednesday, July 6, 2022


Previous senryu

  1. 「何とかいう人から電話と留守の母」
    なんとかいう・ひとからでんわと・るすのはは
    “Got a call from / whatsisname!” per / house-sitting mom

Notes:

  • :confetti_ball: to @LaVieQ

  • As usual, I couldn’t help tinkering with the English version.

  • My wife confirms this interpretation. :bowing_man: I think the grammatically complete version would be something like 「なんとか言う人から電話があった」と留守番の母が言いました。(I’ll interpret one of these correctly eventually, though!)

  • My main confusion was around 留守の母. 留守(るす) normally means “absent” or “away”, so I was interpreting this as the mother being away.

    Maybe here, though, the mother was 留守(るすばん) (caretaker) while the daughter was away! That is, there doesn’t even have to be a written note, she could simply be quoting what her mother told her after she returned. I think (ばん) might have been left off due to the 17(おん) restriction.

  • As an aside: I learned 留守番 at work in Japan back in the eighties (as well as ゴミ当番(とうばん)!). I was always amazed at how efficiently a traditional Japanese office ran and how much information was conveyed by the little magnetic whiteboard/attendance-board.

    Whenever you came or left you’d put the magnet by 入 or 出 next to your name to let others know if you were in the office. If you were taking vacation, you’d write 「休〜mm/dd」. Whenever the 課長 was out, somebody was designated 留守番. And, of course, we rotated the responsibility for emptying the trash cans (though that was indicated by a little construction paper pyramid that got passed from desk to desk each day).

    EVERY Japanese office was (and mostly still is) amazingly (somewhat scarily) similar. On each floor, the 部長 has a desk in the corner near a partitioned-off conference table. Each department under that 部長 has the 課長’s desk turned sideways at the end of a double-row of the desks for the employees in that department. Each department would have 朝礼(ちょうれい) (or, once flex-time was introduced, 昼礼(ちゅうれい)) at the same time every day: everyone stood, bowed, then each employee in turn would say good morning and give a status or share information on anything that affected others in the group.

    I’m constantly aghast at how poorly most western companies run meetings. There are invariably way too many, far too many are a complete waste of time for everyone attending, and rarely if ever does anyone prepare, take action items, for follow-up. There’s some of this in Japan, too, of course, but the group ethic is so thoroughly ingrained that they are mostly much better run. The standing 朝礼 remains a model of efficiency that I always wanted to enforce when I became a manager (but never did due to insufficient cat-herding skills and the inevitable eye-rolling skepticism from western employees).

Current senryu challenge

Volume: Salaryman

  1. 「クビになり 「独立した!」と 言いふらす」

Hints (with no attempt at interpreting the overall meaning this time!)

  • (くび)になる means to be fired

  • 独立(どくりつ) means “independence”. Appropriately enough, we just celebrated 独立記念日(どくりつきねんび) (independence day) here in the US!

  • 言いふらす means to disseminate or spread (a rumor, typically).


Remember to please use the spoiler tag with your translation attempts! Also, please include the reading in kana with your submission.

Everyone is encouraged to participate, no matter your level!

Online tools like dictionaries, sentence databases, and even AI translation engines are fair game and can be extremely helpful. Yomichan is particularly handy if you use the Chrome or Firefox browser. The 語源(ごげん)由来(ゆらい)辞典(じてん) is also an excellent resource for researching the etymology of various words and expressions.

Here are the links to the 356 Japanese originals (spoiler free) and to the the spreadsheet with all the upcoming senryu as well as the translations to date.

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That was my misunderstanding as well, that mom was away from home, (hence) leaving a note for the son/daughter. I didn’t read 留守の母 as 留守番の母.

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くびになり 「どくりつした!」というふらす

the age old
“if I’m fired
I’m free!” lie

Notes

the なり is making me lean towards the “If” correlation but I do realize there is no もし in the 川柳 so :person_shrugging:

I used lie instead of rumor to fit a 3-5-3 line but I am okay with it changing to rumor in an attempt to keep it more of a direct translation.

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クビになり 「どくりつした!」といいふらす

Got laid off, but,
“I’ve gone solo!” is
the tale I tell

Is this merely a サラリーマン’s attempt at saving face, or something else peculiarly Japanese?

My understanding is that the クビになり in this case is the same as クビになって…

I’ll be out for a couple of days - y’all have fun.

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