Category: Everyday Life

Our small complaint

I don’t mind that Saga prefecture (my home ground) has come to be better known these days, but I feel uncomfortable to hear familiar words being used in different ways from their original sense.
That’s right! I’m talking about gabai (which has come to mean ‘great’ in Saga dialect). But I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about it for a long time.

I’m not sure of the correct grammar, but my impression from childhood was that the word meant ‘very’.
‘It’s very great!’ – This week, is this phrase for North Saga High School?
‘It’s very hot!’ – The Japanese climate right now!
‘I like it very much!’ – What Kuro might think when he eats.
And so on…

Now we often see gabai Saga (‘very Saga’: it’s supposed to mean ‘great Saga’) or just gabai! (‘very!’: supposed to mean ‘great!’) in the local newspaper.

I did some research on the word gabai.
They say (in Wikipedia’s entry on Saga dialect) that gabai was originally an adverb to indicate degrees of things, such as ‘how big’ or ‘how much’. It’s a mistake to use it by itself to mean ‘great’.
I know words change meaning all the time, somehow it makes me uncomfortable when I hear this word used strangely. I think it’s not just love for my hometown…

When I told this to Chris this morning, he said that in his case he feels strange about the usage of ‘extremely’.
He said he never wants to say ‘It’s extremely hot!’
Myself, I can’t hear the problem. Hmm.
I guess it’s like chô (‘super’ or ‘very’) in Japanese. What do you think? (I never use chô in Japanese!)

– YS, 24 August 2007

24 August 2007