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Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 1:38 pm
by M. Henri Day
...

英語にて謂う所の、versatile characterやmulti-taskerなどの好意的な評価は、決して「ながら族」の意味するところではないことを銘記すべく申し上げ候。
I don't know, Flam, but it would seem that a younger generation in Japan is using this term in the same positive sense in which BD employed it - at least that's the impression I get from the お蔵入りことば大辞典 article I reproduce below. To me this seems not so much a linguistic as a social change - quite simply, attitudes towards doing many things at the same time (and likely, none of them particularly well) rather than concentrating exclusively on a particular task seem to have undergone a modification in the last generation....

Henri
「ながらぞく」【状態用語】
 ラジオ、CDなどを聴きながら、テレビを見ながら食事や勉強をするというような、ある一つのことをしながら他の動作を行う人。今のこの世の中当たり前のことで、全然珍しくないですね。私が子供の頃は「テレビを見ながら食事をするなんて家族の会話がなくなる」と言って以ての外でした。そんな頑固なことを言っていた昭和ひとケタ生まれの父が懐かしく思い出されます。
(松本市 Y・Yさん)

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 3:02 pm
by Brazilian dude
Well, I posted it because I think it's a fascinating and very economical word. Besides, all my Japanese teachers seem to be using it with a positive connotation, that's why I copied them.

Brazilian dude

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:18 pm
by Flaminius
例えていうなればフラミニウス奴のようなるだらしなさを表すものか。
I feel better about myself if my confessed nagarazoku-hood is not so much sign of laxity as of versatility. I brush my teeth while watching TV. I write this post in Japanese and English, listening to MP3 Hebrew music, while occasionally appreciating the beautiful blossoms of the cherry tree just across the street (and perhaps while somebody is watching a Korean soap drama downstairs). どうだっ? すごいでしょ。
using this term in the same positive sense in which BD employed it - at least that's the impression I get from the お蔵入りことば大辞典 article I reproduce below.
My quotidian behaviours being such as illustrated above, I would welcome such a semantic shift. I doubt, however, if the word nagarazoku is not falling out of use. I seldom hear this word be it either as reproach by the older generation or admiration by the younger one. Even the source that Henri undertook to quote is, as construed with the appellation, a glossary of old words gathering metaphorical dust in the again metaphorical warehouse of obsolescence.

Perhaps word-sensitive people such as BD's Japanese teachers should occasionally venture into that warehouse and take out still-good-for-use words in order for the language to rejuvenerate (蔵出し).

Flam

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2005 7:23 am
by Iterman
Seems to me that nagarazoku is as easy as multi-tasker in opposite to ´that someone has simultankapacitet' as we say in Swedish.

Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2005 9:57 am
by M. Henri Day
Thought-provoking comparison, Iterman ! To me, «ながらぞく» sounds, especially with its pejorative background, like a «grass-roots» metaphor, forcing its way into the language from the bottom up. «Simultankapacitet», on the other hand, strikes me as the perfect product of a Swedish kommitté, precise and streamlined, but utterly devoid of humor. «Multi-tasker» ? An ad executive's neologism, just missing the point....

Henri

Re: nagarazoku

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 11:01 am
by Perry Lassiter
Slava, inspired by your comment that former GW's are inaccessible, my experimental mind went to the AA front page and clicked on 51. Went directly to 2005 among which I found this delightful thread. Do any of these people still frequent these haunts? Flavinius even breaks out in tongues, but is there anyone to interpret? And btw, has anyone noticed the similarity of the above Agora abbreviation to alcoholic rehab?

Re:

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 8:11 pm
by Jeff hook
by M. Henri Day » Thu Apr 07, 2005 12:07 pm

Just that consistency, as is widely known, is the bugaboo of little minds, and mine is small, indeed....

Henri
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Re: nagarazoku

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:19 pm
by Slava
Slava, inspired by your comment that former GW's are inaccessible, my experimental mind went to the AA front page and clicked on 51. Went directly to 2005 among which I found this delightful thread. Do any of these people still frequent these haunts? Flavinius even breaks out in tongues, but is there anyone to interpret? And btw, has anyone noticed the similarity of the above Agora abbreviation to alcoholic rehab?
I'm sorry, I never meant to imply they were inaccessible, merely that they are not searchable. They are in the lists, but don't come up in searches for the title word.

Sadly, also, it has been some years since we have seen the authors of these older posts. Stargzer popped up a few days ago, but seems to have gone AWOL yet again.

As to AA and AA, how could we miss it? A good addiction, and a good solution to an addiction, all in one. :)

Re: Re:

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:22 pm
by Slava
by M. Henri Day » Thu Apr 07, 2005 12:07 pm

Just that consistency, as is widely known, is the bugaboo of little minds, and mine is small, indeed....

Henri
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
No! Can it be? Henri has been caught out in a big boo-boo?

Re: nagarazoku

Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2012 10:24 pm
by Jeff hook
A very little boo-boo. A boubette...