Talk:いい加減

Etymology

@Eirikr Do you know the etymology of this word? --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:17, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Atitarev Well, a quick surface analysis shows it to be a compound of いい (ii, “good”) + 加減 (kagen, literally “plus and minus”). Kagen has a ton of extended idiomatic meanings related to “adjustment; level; degree” etc. The phrase as a whole went from meaning “a good degree, a substantial degree” to “just enough”, and from there to “half-assed”. Depending on context and emphasis, it still has both positive and negative meanings.

I'll see what I can pull together that's dictionary material. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:46, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I am sometimes puzzled by the usage where something like "behave yourself" can have both positive and negative sentence structure with the same meaning or the word itself can mean both good or bad things. E.g. 仕事をいい加減にする (bad), お風呂はちょうどいい加減です (good). --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:21, 12 June 2014 (UTC)