random curiosity

[kaigou]

Anyone know the more formal term for what some fandoms *cough*WK*cough* call 'eartails'? I know there's an actual term for them. I just can't recall what it is. Any ideas?

Comments

Eartails!

[trepto.myopenid.com]

Boy I hope you're notified of this comment! I've been wondering this for years and only tonight went "well duh, look it up as a boolean search for 'hair AND temples', silly".

Let's see how far my pidgin fangirl Japanese can get us. ^_^ These're in JIS encoding, so if they look funny try to see if your browser supports JIS. When I can I'll include Halpern reference numbers since they're the ones I'm familiar with.

鬢 "bin/hin" : sideburns, sidelocks, hair at the temples. Not quite, but it's a single kanji which is cool. (Weirdo rare kanji, no Halpern ref #.)

鬢髪 "binbatsu" : hair at the temples, hair at the sides of the head. "-batsu" is Halpern 2846, "hair of the head". Still has that darned sideburn-specific kanji in it though.

茶利 "chari" : ooh, archaic. Apparently once upon a time this meant the hair on a woman's temples. Now it means a funny word or gesture. Interesting. "Cha" is Halpern 2259, "tea" (O_o no, really) & ri is 1114, "benefit".

揉み上げ "momiage" : sideburns, sidelocks. "Mo" is another rare one with no Halpern reference which can mean "to rub" or "to worry" and "a" is up/above (Halpern 3404). This can also be written without the hiragana "mi" but pronounced the same way.

I think I like "binbatsu" best, since "momiage" is so specifically sideburns/sidelocks (which are grown out sideburns anyway).

Anyhoo. I'm off to put conditioner on my binbatsu. (That... sounds filthy.) On the off chance that this posts *and* you're notified **and** for whatever reason you'd like to communicate further with this here nerd, my email addy's ordinant underscore trepto at yahoo dot com ^_^ .

Re: Eartails!

[kaigou]

I don't really have anything to say in return other than THIS IS AWESOMESAUCE because clearly, the internets will bring you an answer, if you're just willing to wait. Thank you!

I've heard "momiage" used to refer to eartails, but I didn't realize it meant sideburns specifically... and "binbatsu" does sound like something that could be cleared up right quick with a dose of antibiotics. "Not tonight, dear, my binbatsu's flared up again."

heh. "Chari" sounds particularly interesting, in terms of its meaning-movement from a woman's hairstyle to "funny word or gesture". Wonder how that shift came about...