Quiz on things whose names differ between the past and now. Differences between old terms and modern terms.

fruit

Before the Edo period, the word kashi (sweets) referred to things like nuts and fruit. Some time after artificially made confections became widespread, people began, around the Edo period, to call moisture-rich fruits mizugashi to distinguish them from man-made sweets. The term is still sometimes used today on kaiseki restaurant menus. You might picture a jelly-like sweet such as mizu-yokan, but that’s not what it means.

dementia

In 2004, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare decided to change the term from “chiho” (senility) to “ninchi-sho” (dementia). The reasons cited were that the term “chiho” itself is discriminatory and does not accurately describe the symptoms. There were also opinions that the old name was hindering early detection.

glass

Giyaman refers to what we now call glass. Its etymology is the Dutch word “diamant,” meaning diamond. Because diamonds were used to process glass at the time, giyaman came to refer to hard, lustrous glassware.

toilet

Gofujo is an old way of referring to the toilet. It’s a euphemistic expression formed by adding the honorific go to fujo, meaning an unclean place, to avoid direct wording. It was a refined euphemism used to circumvent blunt expression and was reportedly used mainly by women at the time. The toilet was also called setsuin or kawaya, among other names.

couple

“Avec” comes from the French preposition meaning “with.” In the Showa era, “abekku” was commonly used as a noun to refer to a pair of lovers, but nowadays it’s more common to use the English-derived “couple.”

denim

In the past, jeans were abbreviated and called “Jīpan” in Japanese, but these days they’re more often referred to by the material name, “denim.” There’s also a theory that the term comes from the pants worn by American soldiers, who were called “GI.”

leggings

What used to be called “spats” is now generally referred to as “leggings.” They are highly elastic garments that fit snugly to the legs, and the term change became established following the trend in the late 2000s.