Xユーザーのはだかめがね@日曜東ト56aさん: 「#いいヒップの日 いいヒップの日だそうなのでTLでみかけた尻がすごい服着た律子… https://t.co/wiRUatmPEG」 / X
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罠英語・Trap Words pt 3 (Special Feature!)
ヒップ → hip ❌ → butt ✅
This word’s history and usage was long and confusing enough to warrant an entire post to itself. We’ll get into why ヒップ came to mean “butt” and not “hip” in a moment. What I think is more interesting is what the actual Japanese word is for “hip” — there is none, and not in a “Japanese people don’t have a word for X they have to say Y instead and I think that’s beautiful” kind of way. I mean there is literally no word in Japanese for that part of the human body. If you go to the wikipedia article for “Hip” and try to switch languages to Japanese, you will be unable to because, despite the article being written in 49 different languages, a Japanese version does not exist.
Part of the reason for this is that the English word “hip” actually refers to two separate concepts: 1. the hip “region” and 2. the hip joint.¹ The hip joint is actually quite a bit lower on the pelvis than where the average person would point to when asked to point to their hip. Japanese does have a word for this, 股関節(こかんせつ), but it’s not commonly used outside the field of medicine.²
The hip region is what we mainly think of when we say “hip”. The definition is iffy, but the hip region is basically the region of the body in and around the “hip bone”, which is actually 3 bones up until they fuse during puberty. Again, Japanese technically does have a word for the hip bone, 寛骨(かんこつ), but it’s rarely used and the kanji implies literal bone, rather than an area of the body. The hip bone such an unimportant concept in Japanese that it doesn’t even warrant its own wikipedia article, relgated to a single dot point on the article for pelvis (骨盤) instead.³ Our word for hip refers to the bone, but also the layer of skin, fat and muscle that lies over the bone, and also refers to the general shape of that area. There’s no word for this collective concept in Japanese.
This seems odd, because hips have been important to humans since antiquity due to wide hips facilitating easier childbirth. How did the ancient Japanese never develop a need for a word for hips? I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing they made do with a combination of a couple of words:
腰(こし): Waist (kinda - it also refers to the small of the back in particular)
骨盤(こつばん): Pelvis
お尻(おしり): Butt/bum/bottom
It’s commonly said in Japanese that 「お尻が大きいと安産」”if you have a big butt, you’ll have an easy childbirth”.⁴⁵ This isn’t entirely accurate, it’s obviously the bone shape, not the butt fat, that facilitates childbirth, but I imagine it was close enough for people thousands of years ago. I’m guessing that because they had this concept, they didn’t need a separate word for the hip region. Also, 腰 can refer to the whole hip-waist area in general, so they could refer to the region in an un-specific way. My Japanese partner said she would call the hip region 「お尻の横」or 「骨盤」if she had to call it something.
So why does ヒップ mean “butt”? It’s a word that didn’t exist in Japanese before it was borrowed from English, why wouldn’t it fill in the perfect hip-shaped gap in the lexicon?
I believe it comes from clothing measurements. English speaking countries are quite influential in the fashion industry, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the “hip measurement” was imported to Japan and misinterpreted. In the above image, the 「ヒップ」measurement description says 「腰の一番大きい部分を測ります」 "Measure the biggest part of your こし".⁶
Here’s another example: 「ヒップのふくらみの一番高い周囲を測定します」 "Measure the diameter around your body where your buttocks are tallest".⁷ When you think about it, a hip measurement is actually just a butt measurement, since your butt contributes to the widest part of your body there just as much as your hips do.
I believe when the word ヒップ was introduced to Japanese, instead of the lack of the concept of “hips” in Japanese facilitating a demand for the word, it caused a misinterpretation. It probably went something like this: “Ok so we have this new thing called a ‘hip measurement’ from English. It measures the width of your butt and the tops of your legs. The butt is the main thing we’re measuring, plus I can’t see why anyone would need a word for the tops of your legs, so ‘hip’ must mean ‘butt’!”
It’s extremely common for Japanese people to believe that the word “hip” in english also means “butt”. Above we can see Natsuki from Abroad in Japan sliding down an ice slide, complaining in mistaken English about how his bum hurts. The person who added subtitles was either also mistaken, or they decided that the specific part of where Natsuki was hurting didn’t matter and it would cause less confusion to keep the subtitles looking similar to what he said.
For some reason, in Japanese games butt-based attacks are quite common, possibly due to the existence of the word ヒップ. For example, ヒップドロップ (hip drop) is what Mario’s ground pound is called in Japanese (same with Bowser’s down-B in Smash). Once you have a concept for something, it’s easily propagated. It’s entirely possible that the name ヒップドロップ was introduced in Mario and then spread to many other games. Also in Smash, Peach’s side-B is described as a ヒップアタック. A whole wikipedia article exists for ヒップドロップ, suggesting notability and common use.
I hope this was interesting! For additional reading, check out this video from Kevin’s English Room, where Kevin spends 5 minutes trying to describe to two Japanese guys what a “hip” is lmao.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip
[2] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=股関節
[3] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/骨盤
[4] https://manababy.jp/lecture/view/68/
[5] https://jp.moony.com/ja/tips/pregnancy/pregnancy/body/pt0221.html
[6] http://www.paradise-rs.com/original3.html
[7] https://top.dhc.co.jp/shop/fashion/fashion/size.html
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名前松平璃子
出身地東京都
生年月日1998年5月5日
サイズ身長:169cm / バスト:81cm / ウエスト:56cm / ヒップ:84cm / シューズ:24.5cm
特技バスケットボール、書道(硬筆・準2段、毛筆準初段)、美味しそうにご飯を食べること
趣味アコースティックギター、写ルンですカメラ、美容研究、アニメ
資格暗算検定3級
2018年 日本武道館で開催された 欅坂46 2期生としてお披露目
2021年 3月14日をもって櫻坂46を卒業
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