Front Page Words in Japanese and English (©JAPAN Forward)
As the final gatekeeper before articles go to print at a media organization, I also oversee proofreading and copy editing. Day after day, a flood of manuscripts crosses my desk. Many of them contain words, expressions, or turns of phrase that make me stop and think, "Is that right?" or "Hold on a moment."
Language, however, is a living thing, constantly reshaped by the times. In this column, I would like to introduce some of the "new words" and curious expressions I encounter in my daily battles with language.
When 'Survival' Itself Falls into Crisis
For proofreaders, the most striking "new word" of the year has been sonbo no kiki, often rendered as "a crisis of survival." Many readers may shrug and ask, "What's wrong with that?" Yet sonbo refers to "existence and destruction," and if that is said to be in crisis, one is left wondering: which, exactly, is under threat?
Originally, the correct expression was sonbo no ki, a "critical juncture of survival," meaning a decisive moment between existence and annihilation (Kojien, 7th edition). Each time the mistaken use of kiki ("crisis") appeared in manuscripts, we dutifully corrected it.
That said, the misuse had long been common in novels and other writing, and over time it began to gain a measure of acceptance. Then came an incident that seemed to deal the original expression a decisive blow.
In mid-September, Komeito released a document reviewing its defeat in the Upper House election, and it explicitly used the phrase sonbo no kiki. Once wording appears in an official document issued by a nationally recognized political party, it can no longer be dismissed as a mere error and "corrected" back to sonbo no ki.
After an emergency huddle, we ultimately gave the green light to sonbo no kiki. In a twist of irony, 2025 marked the moment when sonbo no ki itself reached its own "critical juncture."
A New Word, Not a Misuse
By contrast, some words spread through society not as misuses, but as entirely new expressions. One such example is magyaku, meaning "the complete opposite."
Personally, I believe I first encountered the word when a celebrity used it on a commercial television variety show. A closer look suggests that it began circulating in the 2000s. For young people born in the latter half of the Heisei era (1989-2019), it likely sounds entirely natural. Precisely because it is such a recent coinage, however, it sits uneasily with those of us from the Showa generation (1926-1989).
I was genuinely taken aback the first time I encountered the word in a mainstream newspaper. It was more than a decade ago, in a serialized article in a major business daily. I still remember exchanging glances with a colleague, thinking, if this were an essay by an economist or an academic, perhaps. But for a journalist, whose livelihood is language, to use it so unselfconsciously!
Even now, I cannot bring myself to use magyaku. Needless to say, whenever it appears in a manuscript, I flag it and replace it with seihantai ("the exact opposite").
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Author: Taro Kobikicho
