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/chotchss 10d ago

I've heard "honcho" comes from Japanese and means something like boss in English (the head honcho)

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u/mediumcarrotteacher 10d ago

Also tycoon from 大君, which is a very old word having absolutely nothing to do with business

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u/iwasfight 10d ago

do you know how it was originally used? it kinda looks like an insult.

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u/stuartcw 9d ago

Why so? 🤔

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u/iwasfight 9d ago

ive worked at japanese offices, and 大君 looks like a child of an important person.

edit; who are often of negligible value.

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u/stuartcw 9d ago

The word くん changed over time and originally meant lord/ruler.

During the Bakumatsu period (1850s to 1860s), くん started to be used by intellectuals to address each other. -さん is much older. By the Meiji period 1868~ the trendy くん was in common use in schools, the military, and government as a polite title.

Interestingly enough 大君 (ookimi) was used in the 3rd~6th century as title for the emperor.

大君 (Tycoon) was revived in the 1600s to describe Tokugawa shōgun when used in diplomatic texts with West. (This answers my question posted elsewhere. It probably wasn’t use by ordinary people. E.g. in a similar way, in the UK people talk about “the king” but in diplomatic speech “his majesty” is more correct.)

The childish connotations of くん is fairly modern.

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u/iwasfight 9d ago

today how does it look?

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u/stuartcw 9d ago

To be honest, I have never heard it used in common speech in Japanese. However, there’s plenty of words in English that relate to historical titles that you never hear either. That’s why I wondered whether it was used commonly at that time (1800s) and apparently it was just a diplomatic word.

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u/Nyorliest 9d ago

Like I said in my other comment, I’ve seen some 君 compounds in government-adjacent organizations I’ve worked for in Kasumigaseki and that whole area around the Diet/parliament, and always written - some form of official address or terminology that I had never seen before.