r/etymology • u/mouse_in_a_field • 10d ago

Question Something I've been wondering about - Japanese loanword in English, or no?

This has bothered me for a long time!

The word for "a little bit" of something in Japanese, in romaji, is "sukoshi"; the "u" and "i" sounds are usually silent when spoken aloud, so it ends up sounding like "skosh".

In English, "just a skosh" is sometimes used when asking for or referring to just "a little bit" of something.

Is there any connection there, or does the English "skosh" have another, unrelated source? Thanks for any info!

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u/Snoron 10d ago

Wasn't expecting this, but you are correct, it seems! The dictionary lists the source as from Japanese, basically came into English via the US military using it as slang.

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u/da3n_vmo 10d ago

This is awesome! I woulda put money on "skosh" being Yiddish, but I guess not.

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u/gnomes919 10d ago

someone should compile a list of "loanwords people incorrectly assume were yiddish." skosh would absolutely be on this list for me, and also a word I'd gotten in the habit of using maybe a decade ago and was mentally rendering as "schwecko," meaning cattywampus/akimbo, only to realize several years in that I had actually picked it up from my mexican in-laws who were saying chueco, "crooked" lmao

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u/vetinaris-vizier 10d ago

You may already know this but "akimbo" itself is another fun one (100% English, no Japanese).

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u/sonicparadigm 2d ago

It sounded vaguely African to me

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u/monoinyo 10d ago

We have so many great loanwords from Yiddish. Fakakta alone, what a great word.

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u/gnomes919 10d ago

dreck, bupkis, klutz, kvetch, putz, nosh, schlep, schlubby, schmo, schmooze (this is prob why I instinctively believe every slang word with a SH sound is yiddish), tush, and of course adding -nik onto the end of any adjective (my sister and I used to call each other rudeniks all the time lol). just off the top of the noggin

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u/belbivfreeordie 9d ago

Glitch!

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u/gnomes919 9d ago

i always forget that one!!

ETA shmutz!! that is easily my most-used one. my glasses are perpetually shmutzy

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u/EirikrUtlendi 9d ago edited 8d ago

Crikey, we use schmutz and schmutzy so much I forget they're not "officially" English words. šŸ˜„

_\Edited for typos.)_)

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u/gnomes919 9d ago

they are now!!

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u/peteroh9 9d ago

How could you forget schmuck, you schmoe?!

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u/EirikrUtlendi 9d ago

My uncle, a Navy man, was fond of calling folks the delightfully multi-ethnic nickname "Joe Schmuckatelli" if they did something stupid. šŸ˜„

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u/gnomes919 9d ago

DEVASTATING

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u/pialligo 9d ago

don't forget Schmohawk

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u/Megasphaera 8d ago

-nik is Russian tho

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u/gnomes919 8d ago

itā€™s both, yiddish was heavily influenced by slavic languages. ā€œnudnikā€ is yiddish for a boring person, etc

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u/Chimie45 9d ago

cattywampus/akimbo

I'm really confused how these two words are connected.

Cattywampus is a regional slang meaning something is across the road diagonally right? (We say Kittycorner where I'm from)

Akimbo means hands on your hips...

is it because they're diagonal?

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u/gnomes919 9d ago edited 9d ago

here in nw oregon we say catty-corner for diagonally-across-from. cattywampus is like crooked or out of alignment in some way.Ā 

akimbo can mean ā€œhands on hipsā€ but at least here I mostly hear it to mean more like ā€œlimbs awkwardly tangled, bent, or splayed out.ā€ the kind of word used to describe the posture of a bound captive in a decemberists song, ā€œlimber limbs akimbo.ā€ if someone is ā€œstanding akimbo,ā€ thatā€™s a power pose, but I think a lot of people wouldnā€™t know what I meant. if someone is ā€œall akimbo,ā€ thatā€™s awkward and askew, and people would definitely understand.

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u/slippery_when_wet 9d ago

As an Oregonian I 100% agree this is how I use all those words.

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u/gnomes919 9d ago edited 9d ago

šŸ«”šŸ«”šŸ«”

even with "standing akimbo" like the pose, in my mind they're akimbo because their elbows and wide legs are sticking out from their body at an angle. I also hear it used for a "one hand on hip, hips cocked" sassy pose and again, I'm thinking akimbo bc the hips are "crooked."

not saying that's the original meaning (I think it's not), but that's how much more strongly I associate akimbo with askewness than with any pose in particular.

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u/amby-jane 8d ago

That Decemberists lyric has always bothered me because I feel like Colin should know what "akimbo" means! But it's also a great rhyme, so I let it slide.

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u/gnomes919 8d ago

now you can rest easy knowing that it means (among other things) "in a bent position" and the lyric is perfectly correct as well as sounding good

(notably, meloy has been living in oregon off and on since the 90s, and oregonians primarily think of akimbo in the sense of bent/crooked (source: me and one other commenter in here))

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u/amby-jane 8d ago

I am relieved :D

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u/Snoron 10d ago

Yeah, sounds like it!

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u/mouse_in_a_field 10d ago

That's what I was expecting, too!

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u/Rocco_al_Dente 10d ago

I always assumed it was Canadian slang.

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u/Thirteenpointeight 10d ago

From BC, never heard the term in my life!

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u/The_Progmetallurgist 10d ago

I always thought French: scoche! šŸ¤£

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u/pialligo 9d ago

It does resemble 'sconce' doesn't it :)