Spoon & Tamago - japanese art, design and culture

For the past 60 years Japanese book publisher Sanseido has maintained one of the country’s most-popular dictionaries. Every several years the dictionary undergoes a revision where new words are added and old ones removed. The latest such revision–the first in 8 years–was recently announced with 3500 new words added and 1,100 words removed. The removed are always interesting and generate somewhat of a buzz because they tell the story of forgotten times. Of course words aren’t simply removed because they’re “old” so to speak. So let’s take a walk down memory lane and remember some of the deleted words and why they were removed.

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テレカ (teleka; short for telephone card)

Telephone cards were a quintessential item everyone had when leaving the house. As ubiquitous as the credit card is today, if you wanted to make a phone call and you didn’t want to keep adding coins to the pay phone you simple inserted the card and minutes were automatically deducted. The phone would punch little holes in the card too so you knew how much time was left. They came in all sorts of designs from athletes and celebrities to cute animals and landscapes. They were a popular collectors item too and I remember scouring phone booths for any cards left behind.

Reason for deletion: decline in usage

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着メロ (chakumelo; short for chakushin melody or ringtone)

When mobile phones first began hitting the market, it was popular to customize ringtones. And before there was downloading, you could buy books that would teach you how to enter the right keys to emulate popular songs at the time and then use them as ringtones.

Reason for deletion: decline in usage

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コギャル (kogyaru; a subset of gal fashion)

It’s hard to talk about the 90s in Japan without mentioning kogyaru. The fashion style, which involved schoolgirls riffing on their own school uniforms by hiking up their skirt, wearing loose socks and often dying their hair, became synonymous with Shibuya culture but spread like wildfire across Japan. The media loved them for their wild, rebellious and sexy appearance and kogyaru had far reaching influences from consumer culture to slang.

Reason for deletion: trend of the past

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タカラジェンヌ (takarasienne; a combination of the words takarazuka and parisienne)

The Takarazuka Revue is a Japanese all-female musical theatre troupe. An antidote to the traditional kabuki theater which only employes males, women play all the roles and mix androgyny with gender expression. Takarasienne was a term of endearment given to actresses in the theater who commanded a form of fan devotion not often seen outside pop idol groups.

Reason for deletion: need to eliminate the number of proper nouns

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MD (short for MiniDisk)

In 1992, with hopes and dreams of transforming our relationship with music, Sony unveiled the MiniDisk. And for 10 years the company tried to convince the world that this was the future. But no one really listened. People continue to debate why MDs never took hold but one reason is that the technology was overpriced and Sony’s target market–teenagers–didn’t see the value in moving away from CDs and cassettes. Sony kept at it though and at one moment it felt like MDs might be having a moment but then came the proverbial nail-in-the-coffin: mp3s.

Reason for deletion: decline in usage; shrinking market

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スッチー (suchi; short for suchuadesu or “stewardess”)

When JAL was established as Japan’s first postwar airline, its uniformed stewardesses were held up as icons of modernity in Japan. their charm, grace, and personalized service captured the hearts of the nation and for most of the late 90s it was one of the most-sought after careers. There were several popular TV series about flight attendants too: アテンションプリーズ (“Attention Please”) in the 70s was perhaps the first.

Reason for deletion: term of the past

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Other words that were deleted include:

• 伝言ダイヤル (dengon dial)
• プラズマディスプレイ (plasma display)
• プロフ (purofu; short for profile)
• 携番 (keiban; short for keitai bango or mobile phone number)
• 企業戦士 (kigyosenshi; company warrior)
• パソコン通信 (pasokon tsushin; PC communication)
• 赤外線通信 (sekigaisen tsushin; infrared communication)
• カラーコーディネート (color coordinator)
• マイナスイオン (mainasu ion or negative ions)

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