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I’m not sure this is universally true, but in most contexts I’ve heard while studying Japanese and visiting Japan, サラリマン (sarariman) indicates someone with the
by rcoder 4y ago
I’m not sure this is universally true, but in most contexts I’ve heard while studying Japanese and visiting Japan, サラリマン (sarariman) indicates someone with the kind of lifetime-employment, “I live in town in a coffin hotel during the week and only see my family on the weekends” job that used to be common for white-collar workers.
The identity, uniform, and work ethic are all part of the package. It’s been a while since most big companies in the US could claim that kind of life-long career and mutual loyalty was likely or even desirable, but early IBM might be an apt comparison., down to the dress code, company songbook, and 40-year tenures for senior staff.
- needle0 4y agoThe proper notation would be "サラリーマン", with a bar between リ and マ which indicates an elongated sound. In fact, writing it as "サラリマン" actually evokes images of a "caricatured western-POV stereotype of a Japanese stereotype salaryman" due to westerners frequently making this mistake.
- rcoder 4y agoYep, you're right. My apologies. It has been about 25 years since I actively studied or spoke Japanese, and I was typing on my phone. My explanation was trying for "understandable" but may have veered into "problematically over-simplified," not to mention insufficiently copy-edited.
- totetsu 4y agoThis same sound shift is why the escalator says babI-car and not baby-car