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Itadakimasu: A word you say to the food, not the cook
- dllu 2mo agoJapanese also has a word you say to the cook, ご馳走様でした (gochisousama deshita) but that's said after the meal as thanks.
- stevefan1999 2mo agoI used to hear that when you finished eating ramen and you should say this as a replacement speech of "thank you". It basically means "It must be tired of you to go around to design and prepare for the meal" which implicitly implied an appreciation
- fluoridation 2mo agoYou can look it up, it's in online dictionaries. gochisou: "feast" sama: honorific deshita: past conjugation of "desu", meaning "is"; thus, "was" In other words, "[that] was a feast".
- stevefan1999 2mo ago語源は、食事の準備のために駆け回ることを意味する「馳走（ちそう）」という言葉にあります。そこに、敬意を表す接頭語の「ご」と接尾語の「様」が結びつき、「ご馳走様（ごちそうさま）」という表現になりました。現在では、食事を用意してくれた人や、ごちそうしてくれた人に対するお礼の言葉として広く使われています。 from https://jp.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/thank-you-for-meal https://jp.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/thank...
- dllu 2mo agoTalking about being "tired", the phrase お疲れ様でした (otsukaresama deshita) is commonly used to express "thanks for the hard work" and it's a catch-all greeting for coworkers now, but it literally means something like "o tired one" and the character 疲 still means tired.
- charcircuit 2mo agoThere's also a word you say when food is brought to you, ありがとうございます.
- deaton 2mo agoThats just a very general thank you.
- charcircuit 2mo agoAnd itadakimasu is general too. That doesn't mean there aren't contexts where it is likely to be said in relation to the process of eating food from others.
- bitwize 2mo agoI always thought it was to the gods, spirits, kami, whatever "it" or "they" were that allowed you to eat. Though it could be either, or both at once; when members of Native American tribes would make a kill on the hunt, they would pay their respects to the spirit of the animal they just killed. Even if it was the spirit of a fish they had just speared, giving its life so they could eat another day. I kind of admire the Japanese for their capacity to live humbly and gratefully without need for a big-sky-daddy myth. The world of the traditional Japanese is full of hidden wonders; indeed, it really belongs to them, and we just live in it.
- LargeWu 2mo agoThis is a really bizarre take. Praying to the small, local spirits, like the one of the animal you are about to eat, is noble and beautiful, but praying to a universal god is worthy of mockery? ("sky-daddy myth") I don't really care what people believe, but if you can accept and respect traditions that believe in the supernatural, which includes any spirit, surely beliefs centered around creator gods are no less plausible.
- anigbrowl 2mo agoThe trouble with monotheism is not the belief in the supernatural per se* but the totalizing nature of it. In polytheistic or pantheistic traditions, you're supposed to respect gods because they're more powerful than you and have the inclination and means to bring you low if you're not properly deferential. But they also have limited agency and purview, are understood to be capable of petulance and other chracter-limiting flaws, and relations with them are highly negotiable. Aven from an purely atheistic point of view, they're projections what's good and bad about humanity and its relations with the rest of the world. Monotheistic religions ascribe creative power for everything that exists to their deity of choice, generally accompanied by total omniscience and absolute, unquestionable moral righteousness. You may or may not be able to propitiate or plead with such a god privately, but are almost certainly out of luck as far as dealing with said god's believers. Not to say that polytheistic cultures are inherently placid and easygoing; you could point to anthropological examples of institutionalized human sacrifice or divinely inspired atrocities, feuds etc. However I think the inherent universalism of monotheistic religions gives rise to a higher overall cost function because such religions constitutionally reject the validity of other beliefs.
- Michelangelo11 2mo ago> The gloss is not wrong. But it has quietly relocated the word. Thanks, Fable
- weiliddat 2mo agohttps://www.pangram.com/history/c837bbcb-4aed-43e1-987c-afe25ad4dde2?ucc=O8HdtLqflRu https://www.pangram.com/history/c837bbcb-4aed-43e1-987c-afe2... I know you're being downvoted, because people are tired of hearing "this is AI". But I think your comment "this is AI" is warranted. This content, explaining something of cultural, personal significance (instead of the typical technical explainer) should really be written by a human.
- asgraham 2mo agoHow good are these detectors? (Serious question— I’ve never had a reason to use one)
- no_multitudes 2mo agoPangram's actual classifier model is really strong. It has an incredibly low false positive rate. Whenever people complain about it, I ask them to provide verifiable non-adversarial long-form false positives, and nobody has done so yet. False negatives are more common (as they should be -- it's better to let an AI article through than to false accuse someone.) Their frontend is often misleading, though, for these reasons: - 100% means that it thinks 100% of the article is AI, not that it's 100% confident the article is AI. It's very easy for people to get this confused. - It is much less accurate on shorter text, and doesn't advertise this fact clearly enough. - It works on chunks of text (I think they're like 100 tokens) and can't identify within that chunk which parts are AI and which parts are human.) This should be more clear in the UI, I think.
- astrobe_ 2mo agoPossible false positive because of the text was translated from Japanese to English with AI? I don't see the point of starting a newsletter written by AI.. But I don't understand the point of cheating with a computer on lichess.org either.
- buildingsramen 2mo agoI feel like this is intellectualizing something that isn't that deep. It's a word you say, not think about. Why do English speakers say "excuse me" after a sneeze? The answer is apocryphal and uninteresting.
- mproud 2mo agoWhere I’m from, the person who sneezes often says nothing, unless they’re accidentally sneezing near someone else. Strangers nearby however will say “bless you!” or occasionally “gesundheit!” But yes, I think people who utter the words do so as a quick reaction without much forethought.
- arjie 2mo agoHaha, I think it's more like an article about "Goodbye" originating from "God be with ye". That part is interesting - a curiosity. However, I do wish there was more about the history of the term, especially that it's a 20th Century national formalization of meal ceremony that was one of many practices of the time. It seems that one particular school of Buddhism won this memetic war and the structures of formalization took it on and thereafter it is now Japanese Culture with a capital C. The closest analogue I can think of is diamond engagement rings. Doubtless they were given out prior, but they became formally 'normal' for a while. Of course, one was orchestrated and the other was perhaps just the effect of picking some formal culture to teach and so on. But it is similar in recency of popularity.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- buildingsramen 2mo agonow _that_ would be more interesting, but it would also be a completely different article
- j2kun 2mo agoYou can make anything shallow by just not thinking about it. Conversely, the way things become deep is because we intellectualize them.
- syockit 2mo agoFun trivia: the greeting only started to become a thing during the Meiji era as part of moral and ethics education. It may be argued that it has its roots in Buddhist teachings, but there's a theory that the drive to make it a common household practice may have come from the envoys who came back from western countries and saw the Christian prayer and thought it was a good thing to imitate. It's quite a stretch, but personally I find it quite interesting given that it was an era where Westernization was the craze.
- mindtricks 2mo agoIf true, kudos to them for shrinking it all down to one word. Saying "grace" can be an event to itself at some meals.
- kurthr 2mo agoGood food, good meat, good god, let's eat!
- deaton 2mo agoIts really not that far fetched. Japan has quite a history of copying the aesthetic of things the west does while changing the meaning completely. Christmas is a romantic holiday in Japan, and it is considered fashionable to get married in a church, even though only about 2% of the country is Christian.
- tekla 2mo agoIts strange because I knew the point from the article already, but it kinda seems like some sort of strawman? I think many cultures have a way of saying "thanks for the food" in a universal way and not the cook. Even in western cultures there is "saying grace" and I don't think anyone would mistake it for it being aimed at the cook.
- mortenjorck 2mo agoI had always assumed it was a sort of quasi-religious practice as the same gesture is typically seen at shrines. Not once in 30 years of consuming Japanese culture did I ever think it was directed at the chef!
- waffletower 2mo agoごちそうさまでした。「gochisousama deshita」 This can be said to the cook. I heard "いただきます！"「itadakimasu」more frequently for a variety of reasons. But it is common to shout out to thank the cook when you leave a restaurant. I became comfortable doing it myself.
- timetraveller26 2mo agoWhere I am from we say "Gracias a Dios" after a meal. Childs and even non-religious people say it as a reflex. It's a common joke to question why we thank God instead of the person who actually cooked the meal.
- jolmg 2mo agoFrom a non-religious view, God represents everything not in your control. You thank God for e.g. not having you or your guardian/provider be fired/laid-off or otherwise yourselves being put in a position where you can't eat (illness, etc.). The person who cooked your meal isn't the only one responsible for your being able to eat. They need the ingredients and efforts of everyone making such ingredients and putting them in your home as well as luck for nothing going wrong (transportation, good harvest, etc.), generally most of it "by the will of God" / "under God's control" (i.e. outside of your control). In Spanish, a maybe more common and culture-specific expression may be "Provecho" which is said to others about to eat (or that are currently eating and you're in the process of greeting). It means "benefit"/"utility" and is said in hope that the food is of usefulness to the health and well-being of the person(s) about to eat / currently eating.
- StilesCrisis 2mo agoNo it doesn't. God isn't "the guy who made my cheeseburger." I can't control whether he does it right or not but it's not God.
- jolmg 2mo agoTry not to see things too black-and-white. "God" isn't the guy who made your cheeseburger. The cheeseburger guy will have a great degree of control over himself, and you have some minor degree of control over him, but you both depend on a lot more than yourselves for that cheeseburger to happen. It's everything that's there, everything that's happened, and everything you're taking for granted. The point of being thankful is to not take your good fortunes for granted.
- orangebread 2mo agoSeems like a form of expressing gratitude for the food you're about to eat, and not an exclusive practice to Buddhism or Christianity. There is an intrinsic spiritual element to giving grace before eating.
- stevefan1999 2mo agoAnother fun fact: itadakimasu is categorized as a keigo, or more specifically, kenjougo, an honorific expression that depreciates speaker itself. And since itadaku is an advanced version of morau to show that "I am of lower status", so the whole expression should be (from the gods/kamisama/the people above me who brings me here for the feast) I humbly receives. This is also why you say itadakimasu even when alone, despite there are apparently no one superior than you exists, but no, it is now the gods you appreciate
- ASalazarMX 2mo agoWe've always thanked the cook, specially if it's a homemade meal. Sometimes I wish we showed some respect for the things that died so we could live, but food is so plentiful nowadays that we can't show respect to everything, and some things are so unnaturally ultraprocessed that they don't deserve any respect.
- itpragmatik 2mo agoअन्न हे पूर्णब्रह्म
- ricardobeat 2mo agoClaude seems to be really into japanese customs.
- dasyud 2mo agoI take a break from coding to browse HN, and, lo and behold, I'm greeted with some more Claude.
- numpad0 2mo agoI guess Japan had become a safe default of an exotic foreign world in a lot of contexts, thanks to it requiring no audience profiling. Usually there are nobody from Japan around, and Japan is usually not so deeply involved in global politics, yet it's a country with global population share of >1% with plenty of topics to explore.
- rootsudo 2mo agoArticle falls flat, there’s more, https://cotoacademy.com/itadakimasu-and-gochisousamadesu/ https://cotoacademy.com/itadakimasu-and-gochisousamadesu/ I could write it up, but this article explains it more. You should really be learning Gochisousama Deshita (ごちそうさまでした) too. I feel the article is flat because normally you learn both expressions at the same time because it completes a small ritual to, literally thank the cook. Also em dash galore.
- andy_ppp 2mo agoI’m not sure how true this is but a Japanese friend said Gochisousama Deshita means something slightly different along the lines of “thank you for your lives” and you’re saying that to the food as well as the chef.
- xandrius 2mo agoご馳走 (gochisou) means feast. 様 (sama) is a highly honorific suffix. でした (deshita) it was. Basically literally saying "that was a great feast", as it is said after eating the meal and leaving the establishment. Not sure why the Japanese friend would say that.
- Ferret7446 2mo agoIf you look at ご馳走 it quite literally doesn't mean feast. It refers to the people/effort required to rush deliver all of the fresh ingredients to prepare the meal. It's a consequence of Japanese aversion to starting things directly. You don't say "it was a great feast". You say "it must have been a great effort mustering the horses and men for this" Of course the expression is used commonly enough that the de facto meaning is basically that now.
- acchow 2mo ago[dead]
- no_multitudes 2mo agoClaude, pick an arbitrary Japanese word that shows up often in anime and write a blog post about how deep it is.
- nekooooo 2mo agogood lord this is over-intellectualised nonsense. it's not complex or ancient, it's actually part of the meiji era aping of western cultural semiotics, and the OP seems to misunderstand the etymology. just say itadakimasu before a meal and gochisosama after. maybe a few days later, if someone else bought you the meal: 先日（昨日）はごちそうさまでした
- blinkbat 2mo agoSlop
- unsignedint 2mo agoThis definitely feels like an overgeneralization. For what it’s worth, there are plenty of people who don’t say "itadakimasu" at restaurants but would say it when they’re invited to someone’s home as a guest, for example. More people, however, seem to say "gochisousama deshita" (thank you for the food) when leaving, whether at a restaurant or someone’s home. Some people do say "itadakimasu" out of habit even when they’re eating alone. They may have grown up with stricter manners around meals, to the point where it’s simply baked into their routine. But it’s far from universal. Dramas and other shows may make it seem more universal than it actually is, partly because saying it out loud is more performative and works better on screen.
- teo_zero 2mo ago> There is a Japanese word that almost everyone reading this has already heard I had never heard this word. It's the second time in a row that I encounter something unknown to me that is characterized as being universal. Curiously enough, both cases were related to Japan. So either I belong in a minority who ignores well-known elements of that culture, or someone overestimates how widespread such elements actually are.
- CommieBobDole 2mo agoRelevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2501/ https://xkcd.com/2501/
- teo_zero 2mo agoThank you. Sometimes I forget that for each and every significant experience in life there's probably an XKCD page that captured its essence!
- robertlutece 2mo agoHere's another one: https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- Izkata 2mo agoIt pops up all the time in anime. Given the name of the blog, I'm guessing it's accurate to their normal audience.
- dumberquestions 2mo agoWell the "this" in "almost everyone reading this" being a reference to an article in a blog called the Tokyo hermit makes it a pretty reasonable assumption.
- p0w3n3d 2mo agoThat's really interesting. For example in Polish (and I'd say in French too, not an expert though), we say "smacznego" which means "may it taste good to you" which is yet another direction, not to cook, not to the spirits or God, but to y'all who eat with me. I'd say this is another cultural peculiarity. Other languages have similar phrases: "enjoy your meal". I'd say "bon appetit", or "buen provecho" is also directed on goods that flow from the food. This is man-centric. Wishing well all the people because we're having a wonderful feast here. What is really curious is how we take this food "greeting" is somehow similar to how we take the article. When article was written by a human, an effort was taken and we are happy to accept it and we feed on it, we imagine the person writing, giving us the love (as similar to buen provecho), sending it to other people who will read it. I never thought about it this way until now. But when the article was written by AI we start to see the no-effort AI farm or company that tries to lure us to read it and probably earn money or respect. These assumptions may be truly mistaken, as sometimes this is a person writing but e.g. they asked AI to correct the text and the correction has been made inhuman. TL;DR So eventually that's the author person good will we're seeking, when reading the article. The connection were striving for. Quite eye opening.
- Lockal 2mo agoA grossly misleading article; > almost everyone has misaddressed Almost no-one, unless we are talking about LLMs and Google Translate users who could attempt map translations 1-to-1. Oh well, a new AI generated fake piece was published, see it soon in the "Did you know ..." section of enwiki.
- penguin_booze 2mo ago> when you find out who it is for Whom it is for.