I am the token english speaker in my marine biology lab here in japan, so i get a lot of english questions.
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They recently asked me the meaning of the English name for Kauika カウイカー , or cuttlefish in English.
Most of them know a decent amount of English but then they asked me to explain what “cuttle” means.
I got hung up and just said something to the effect of “non sexual hugging” but I am certain they didn’t entirely understand.
How do you explain the English phrase cuddle? Cuttle? In English it doesn’t make sense but yea. That’s what I got asked.
9 comments
I might be wrong, but I don’t think “cuttle” has anything to do with “cuddle”. Cuttlefish get their name from the cuttlebone afaik.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttlebone
Are you sure you know what it means? Just browsing Wikipedia the name seems to come from an Old English word “cudele”, which seems to mean “pouch” or “sack”
And anyway, 抱く、寄り添う、擦り寄る are just a dictionary search away.
Cuttle does not mean cuddle…
Non sexual hugging lol!! That’s “cuddle” not “cuttle”. Jesus they must be confused now.
When you want to know the origin of words that’s called Etymology.
A search for the etymology of cuttlefish says:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/cuttlefish
Are you sure these animals are hugging in a non-sexual way? As a scuba diver, I swear I’ve heard some of them say dirty things while cuddling.
Make sure you inform your lab mates the correct words
Just say cuttle is the 甲 part of 甲イカ
Cuttle/cuddle confusion aside, just say it doesn’t mean anything, maybe it was named for something historically but english has many words no one thinks about. Etymology is a study in itself. None of us know exactly why chickenpox has the word chicken in it, we just say it. Just like many names in japanese.
Also cuddling is rarely non-sexual hugging my sweet summer child haha.
You can just say that you don’t know the meaning if you don’t know the meaning.