There’s an [aphorism] tag? I’m OK with nuking that. Didn’t even know it existed.
I’m also okay with removing [yoji], but I don’t think it particularly matters one way or the other.
On Jan 17, 2018, at 10:18 PM, Marcus Richert superbrightfuture@********* [edict-jmdict] <edict-jmdict@***************> wrote:
I've been thinking about the whole situation right now with [yoji] for quite some time and I actually think it would be for the best if we rolled back on and got rid of the [yoji] tag and instead apply [id] where appropriate, and possibly also amend the [proverb] tag to explicitly mean "proverb, maxim or proverbial noun phrase" (or something along those lines) and apply it too where it makes sense. (... or possibly make a new "proverbial/proverb-like" misc tag.)
Why?
1) What constitutes a yojijukugo isn't well-established even in Japanese. Or rather - all words written with 4 kanji are yojijukugo, in the broadest sense. See the definitions given in daij and the whole "四字熟語の範囲" section in the Japanese Wikipedia article. Though the idea was that we'd restrict the [yoji] tag to "idiomatic yojijukugo," the way it's currently used, after the bulk amendment based on the Kanji Haitani list, etc., it often means little more than "this word is, as you might be able to see, written with four characters."
2) Even if we attempt to clear out many of these non-idiomatic jukugo, we'll notice that "idiomatic yojijukugo" still ends up feeling like a misnomer for many entries which nonetheless would probably fit even the most narrow Japanese definitions of the word (there's as fair as I can tell no common _expression_ for "idiomatic yojijukugo" in Japanese but as daijr puts its; "特に...成語として用いられるものをいう" but again, see jawiki's lengthy description). 一国一城, for example, is neither [proverb]-ial nor [id]-iomatic ― it is a pretty literal _expression_, as are many other "one this, one that" type of yojijukugo. Deciding which ones are and aren't "idiomatic" isn't always an easy task. According to Wikipedia, the 1998 Shinmeikai Yojijukugo dictionary apparently divides yojijukugo into six (!) different categories, but this categorization has nothing to do with whether or not they are what we mean by "idiomatic".
3) Even if we also remove the tag from entries like 一国一城 and only use it for yojijukugo that we might establish are without a doubt in some sense "idiomatic", some of these are used as proverbs expressing general truths, while others are used as idioms to describe a certain situation. 弱肉強食 is certainly a pithy saying, e.g. "the weak are eaten by the strong," expressing a general truth. 以心伝心 on the other hand is not. Both are yojijukugo and should probably clear the bar for "idiomatic yojijukugo" but the [yoji] tag here provides little guidance to how they are actually used.
4) Jawiki mentions the list doesn't end at idiomatic yojijukugo - though few, there are idiomatic sanjijukugo as well as gojijukugo and rokujijukugo. Some of these are already in jmdict, like 一姫二太郎. Tagging these as [yoji] makes no sense. Creating new [sanji], [goji] and [rokuji] tags for a handful of expressions make even less sense. But leaving them as they are, as long as the [yoji] tag is around, is inconsistent.
On the whole, I think there's too much that's up for interpretation what should and what shouldn't be tagged [yoji], and it's really hard to come up with a good delineation and to justify it.
Also, on a slightly unrelated note, do we want to delete the [aphorism] tag? No entries have it, and it's a pretty tough job distinguishing between aphorisms and proverbs anyways (really, many entries should probably have both, if we were actually using it).
Marcus
On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 9:01 PM, Jim Breen jimbreen@********* [edict-jmdict] <edict-jmdict@****** roups.com > wrote:
On 14 May 2014 14:33, Darren Cook darren@********* [edict-j
mdict]
<edict-jmdict@***************> wrote:
>> I might as well. I also wondered about "Go", but it doesn't occur that
>> often.
>
> If someone wants to add them, this is a reliable and comprehensive source:
> http://senseis.xmp.net/?JapaneseGoTerms
Nice list. If anyone wanted to go through them there are some terms
worth adding.
> Just skimming that list, some are just standard Japanese (e.g. 予選 as a
> stage of a knock-out tournament), not go terms, so it needs a bit of
> filtering. Also, generally, if a katakana and a kanji version are shown,
> it is the katakana version that is always used. (E.g. ko is always
> written コウ, never 劫.)
I see we have that sense marked "uk". It's a nuisance structurally when
one sense is predominantly in katakana.
> My new book: Data Push Apps with HTML5 SSE
> Published by O'Reilly: (ask me for a discount code!)
Congratulations on that, BTW.
Jim
--
Jim Breen
Adjunct Snr Research Fellow, Japanese Studies Centre, Monash University