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The two hardest worked words in the dialect are damé and yokambéi. To attempt to render in English all their shades of meaning would exhaust a dictionary. Suffice it that the primary meaning of damé is ‘of no use,’ while yokambéi means literally ‘will be good.’ They are generally exactly antithetical; for instance ‘Will it do if I go to-morrow’ is Asu itte yokambei kash’?—Asu dume dash’, ‘Tomorrow will be too late.’
The meaningless né so much used by the lower classes at Tôkiô is changed into na and is used by every one. In polite conversation it takes the suffix shi and becomes nash’. Occasionally a yokel, in his desire to be excruciatingly polite, attaches the shi to the preceding word as well; as sô dash nash’! Amari samuish’ nash’! But this is reprehensible and betokens a sad want of education.
Sa is par excellence the postposition of the dialect. Besides embracing all the ideas of motion towards and rest at, if occurs in such phrases as Tsukuye sa oite o kure. ‘Put it on the table’ Uchi sa wasurete kita, ‘I left it at home. Oboko sa kureta. ‘I gave it to the child’
An expression of constant occurrence is Najô na konda which is a contraction for Nani jô na koto da, (jô meaning ‘item,’ ‘particular.’) It is used interrogatively in the sense of ‘what is the matter?’ and also reflectively to express surprise or inability to answer a question. Najô is much used in all interrogations. I was once politely asking a little lady of about eleven years old, after the welfare of her mother who had recently been ill, and for want of this word utterly failed to make myself understood, especially as none of the words that I knew for ‘mother’ seemed to be familiar to her. I was abandoning the attempt in despair, when a student came to my rescue with Da sama wa najô de o idenashita kash’, which elicited the prompt answer ‘shidai ni iish.’’
San as a title is of quite recent introduction, and its use is considered a sign of affectation, and is ridiculed as an imitation of a cockneyism of the metropolis. A few years ago the word was not known, and a gentleman said Sama
