On our Facebook group, listeners are pondering whether there’s a word for buying an object and then using it for a completely different purpose — the treadmill that ends up as a clothes rack, for example. The Japanese expression mikka bozu, or “three-day priest,” denotes a somewhat similar phenomenon — people who throw themselves into the discipline of becoming a priest, only to find their enthusiasm turns out to last just hours, not the many years required to become proficient. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Mikka Bozu”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. On our Facebook group, BC Cornish asks,
Is there a phrase or word in English that conveys the idea of buying an object and then using the object for a lesser purpose or an unintended purpose, e.g. buying a treadmill and then using it to hang clothes? And Grant, I don’t know that there’s one singular word for that kind of experience, but it does remind me of a really cool Japanese expression that I came across just the other day, which is mikabosu. And mikabosu literally means three-day monk. And it refers to the kind of person who starts an idea, you know, they get all excited about something. Maybe they buy a language app and they’re going to become fluent in this or that language, or they they get all excited about some fitness program or diet, and then they’re only on it for three days. The idea in Japanese is that, you know, somebody gets excited about becoming a monk, but they can only last for three days. Mikubosu.
I love that term.
Oh, I know that.
My son goes through that with video games. He makes a list. He watches videos about video games. He learns the ones that are great. He decides what he wants. He figures it out. He saves his money. He obsesses about when it’s going to arrive. It arrives, and then he just plays it for as many hours as we’ll let him, and then he’s done. But it’s not just a video game. It’s the whole process that he enjoys. He enjoys figuring out the games, discovering what other people think about it, deciding which ones to buy, making the list of games, ranking them, then buying it. So it’s a whole—he’s a three-day monk about the whole process. And then he’s on to the next thing, right?
Yeah.
Well, he’s a three-day monk about the next game.
Yeah.
You have your weird obsessions. We have ours. What are your weird language obsessions? 877-929-9673. Or just share your thoughts and stories about how you communicate with the world. Email us, words@waywordradio.org, or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.
