This week: Tension. In English, it can be a negative term. In Japanese? Not so much. We look at the origins of tension and how it became a Japanese word with its own distinct meaning. Then a little bit of linguistic news and we finish off with all the usual footnotes. Here we go!
Tension, like a lot of other English words we've looked at, has acquired a handful of specialty uses that stem from the same basic meaning but with added nuance. So, let's start with the basics - what is tension?
Merriam-Webster gives us four broad definitions: mental unrest, being stretched taut, either of two forces balanced against the other, and, finally, a tool used to create, uhm, tension. Perhaps more interestingly, each of these first three definitions contains sub-definitions that tie it to the other, broader, definitions. For example, listing 1C defines tension as "a balance maintained in an artistic work between opposing forces or elements." The takeaway is that, while it's easy to shorthand "tension" as being equal to "stress" it's perhaps more appropriate to liken it to "unbalanced." Which is important for two reasons: comedy and music.
Comedy, as we know from the many times I've referenced Stanford's Philosophy of Humor and not from our own internal recognition of funny, relies heavily on tension. After all, if there's any one thing that can link everything from Charlie Chaplin's physical mastery to George Carlin's wordplay, it is the creation and release of tension1. When we tell jokes, we create a sustained feeling of anticipation and stress through the build-up to the punchline. Then, once the punchline has been delivered...relief. The tension dissolves. If you've ever heard a six-year-old tell you the Banana Who2 joke, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But we know this.
What might be less familiar, especially if you're not a musician, is that tension is used much the same way in music. Specifically, tension in music is the creation of a sustained feeling that has not yet resolved. Usually, this is done through the repetition of a sequence of notes or by holding one chord until a different note, or pitch, or rhythm is played.
But how does this tie into the Japanese language? Well, let's start with this from the website jisho.org:
tenshon: (highness of) spirits; (good) mood; excitement; energy
Japanese, just like English, borrows a lot of words from other languages. As the words change phonetic boundaries, they can shift in form. Tension, for example, becomes tenshon, just as tor-tee-ya (tortilla) becomes tor-til-la in England3. What is somewhat more unique4 is Japan's propensity for taking English words and giving them entirely new meanings and usages through a process called "wasei-eigo5."
There are hundreds, if not thousands of these words and they can be confusing to English speakers trying to learn Japanese6. They're not all that different from the "false friends" that can so often confound English-speaking learners of French and Spanish. As for why these words are "misused" by Japanese people, well, all the usual suspects apply: sometimes it's just a funny way to use new vocabulary, other times it's a deliberate error by advertisers used as a tactic to bring in more customers7. Most often though, it's just a natural misunderstanding that gets perpetuated through repetition. Such is the case with tension.
The (unconfirmed and unstudied, so far as I know) theory is that the Japanese use of tension came from its use in music. As English-speaking musicians interacted with Japanese musicians, they spoke of raising and lowering the tension in their songs. The Japanese musicians understood this to mean raising or lowering the energy levels in songs and the new usage spread from the music world to pop culture at large.
And there you have it. Tension has spread from English to Japanese and, in doing so, acquired a new usage and new synonym. The question now is, how long will it take for this new usage to spread back to English; I leave you with this anecdote:
Several years ago, one of my students had the arduous task of helping me decorate the classroom for Halloween. We made a game out of it. I'd take each piece of kit out of the box and hold it up for inspection. She would declare it to be either high or low tension according to the laws of coolness and feng shui that only teenagers are privy to, and tell me where to put it for maximum tension.
Back in May of this year, as the pandemic eased a bit here in Japan and we were allowed back into the classrooms, one of my co-workers asked me to help him arrange the desks in his room. He put a small poster on the secondary door to the room. "What do you think," he asked.
"It's a little low-tension, isn't it?"
Without a word, my co-worker tore the poster from the door, balled it up, and threw it at my head. A very high-tension moment, indeed.
Stay curious,
J
Linguistics In the News:
Two quick notes from "The Conversation" this week that I found to be a lot of fun. First, over in France, the English phrase "no worries" has been given a companion, "pas de souci,” but, inevitably, instead of being completely analogous in use to "no worries" its usage has spread, sparking debates across the nation.
Meanwhile, down under, researchers are starting to make a serious go out of collecting and preserving Australian slang. I'm all in favor of this. My first roommate in Japan was from Australia and listening to him talk to our other Aussie friends was a crackin' good time even if I didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
Footnotes:
For a much smarter, and much funnier, take on this same concept watch Hannah Gatsby's special "Nanette" on Netflix. She takes the entire concept of tension and turns it on its head.
You know this one: Knock knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? (repeat 3 or 4 times, then, finally) Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say banana? I hate this joke.
This one's purely anecdotal; my friends may just be winding me up by saying it this way but, since my friends do it, by the transitive property, all English people do it. Case closed.
Just how unique this phenomenon is can be a topic of heated debate. There's no doubt that lots of languages do this, but how many do it as often or as well as Japan, is open to interpretation.
Literally, "English made in Japan."
Feel like starting a fight in a room full of English teachers? Loudly declare that wasei-eigo is the best thing to happen to English in Japan and then run. Fast.
Apple's "Think Different" campaign had so many people complain about the mis-grammared adjective that it is believed to have help driven sales beyond what the advertisement alone would have done.