Essay: The Chic of Spoken Language

When I hear people complaining about how deplorable it is that young people don't use honorifics with their elders, or how they dislike old people who speak to them in an overly familiar way—well, such trivial talk—I just think that it all depends on each person's capacity for tolerance.

I don't mind if the young people I know don't use honorifics with me. I can tell they have respect for me. If they were just foul-mouthed, I would either keep my distance or say sharply, 'You should stop that, as it only makes you look embarrassing.' Well, rather than saying I don't mind, it's more that being spoken to in honorifics is tedious. Instead of being told, 'Are you going to treat me? Thank you very much,' I prefer the tempo of 'Is this on you? Thanks.'

This good tempo is very useful when responding to police questioning. It's nothing to brag about, but in the past, whenever I walked around Tokyo, I was often stopped for this kind of thing. When that happened, a veteran police officer would start off by saying, 'Hey, brother, sorry about this.' Then I would reply, 'Thanks for your hard work. I'm getting my wallet out now, so just wait a second,' and 'Oh, you're used to this?' 'Thanks to you, yes.' By trading light banter like that, it would end easily.

One time, it even turned into a funny conversation where he said, 'Hey brother, haven't I stopped you in Ikebukuro before?' It's interesting how you can part ways in a good mood like that.

Also, when I'm drinking alone in some old-fashioned izakaya in Tokyo, it's not rare for a conversation to start with an older man sitting next to me, and for us to hit it off and go bar-hopping together. Once, I was drinking with a well-dressed man who was a professor at some university, and he ended up treating me to blowfish cuisine. Encounters like these wouldn't happen if we were using honorifics.

Besides, I do use proper honorifics with elders I truly admire. That sort of thing isn't about the vulgar talk of profit and loss; it's about the wisdom of adults—how to keep a conversation flowing smoothly and improve human relationships.

Therefore, a person who understands such spoken language and can use it selectively looks chic, and their life benefits a little bit because of it.

My followers, you don't need to use honorifics when talking to me either. If you feel up to it, feel free to speak to me in plain, casual language right from the start.

The End