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I recently encountered the Japanese phrase 出鱈目/デタラメ/detarame to mean... well, what we in English generally refer to as bull****. Which, the implications in the word from what it means is pretty straightforward.

I'm interested in what the literal translation would amount to. As far as I can tell from looking up the individual characters, it has something to do with (bulging?) cod eyes (codswallop?), but I'm not sure why they'd be equated to-- let's call it bullcrap.

This is about etymology more than use! I'm interested in what it means in Japanese, rather than what it's equivalent to.

Eddie Kal
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Curious
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    https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/14115/30454 – Eddie Kal Dec 11 '21 at 01:45
  • Thanks! The full phrase really helps. Do you know why the word for cod/鱈 came to be associated with "saying anything", or is it just a homonym? – Curious Dec 11 '21 at 02:42
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    It is *ateji*: https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/15179/43676 – aguijonazo Dec 11 '21 at 03:12
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    Oh, I see! Well, it's a bit disappointing there isn't a more involving origin to it, but that's true of all languages! They can't all be interesting full-backstory yojijukugo. Thank you both very much for the background! Your answers were very much not cod eyes ;) – Curious Dec 11 '21 at 03:36
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    Does this answer your question? [Under what circumstances is でたらめ used?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/14115/under-what-circumstances-is-%e3%81%a7%e3%81%9f%e3%82%89%e3%82%81-used) – Eiríkr Útlendi Apr 04 '22 at 22:18

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