[Ads-l] go = urinate, transitive; shishi (1974?)

Barretts Mail mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM
Sun Nov 19 19:33:21 UTC 2017


The Oxford Living Dictionaries (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/go <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/go>) and Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/go <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/go>) have the meaning of “urinate/defecate” as only intransitive.

But “go pee/poo” must surely be transitive, with a limited range of objects meaning urine or feces.

An alternative for pee found in Hawai'i is “shishi” borrowed from Japanese (search for “shishi” on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%BF#Japanese <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%BF#Japanese>).

According to “Hawaiian Culture: Pidgin Phrases you Should Know” (https://www.liveyouraloha.com/hawaiian-culture-pidgin-phrases-know/ <https://www.liveyouraloha.com/hawaiian-culture-pidgin-phrases-know/>) by Jodie Oaks, "I gotta go shishi!” is a polite way to say “that you have to go pee.” The article also notes that children often use it; “shishi” is a child’s word in Japanese (https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%97%E3%81%97 <https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%97%E3%81%97> in Japanese).

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_loanwords_in_Hawaii <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_loanwords_in_Hawaii>) also has “go/make shishi”. The word “make” would seem to come from the Japanese suru (する), since shishi(o) suru is common. “Suru” is a dummy verb with thousands of uses; although my Mac Japanese-English dictionary does have “make” as one of the meanings, it doesn’t seem to be a general way to translate “suru”. As purely idle speculation, I wonder if the “make” in “make shishi” comes by way of Portuguese or some other language.

The Hawaiian Culture article and Wikipedia both talk about “five-four-four" as a way to say “go shishi” in Hawaiian English. The number “five” can be pronounced as “go” and “four” as “shi”. That Wikipedia page calls it a Japanese kanji joke, but it comes from a systematic way of pronouncing numbers to make mnemonics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_wordplay#Numeric_substitution <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_wordplay#Numeric_substitution>).

1. 2005 
http://bit.ly/2AZUGVb <http://bit.ly/2AZUGVb>
Da Kine Dictionary: Da Hawai'i Community Pidgin Dictionary Projeck
by Lee A. Tonouchi

cites a 1974 work by David Hiromoto, McKinley

——
shishi pee or the act of peeing. I drank too much beer so now I gotta go shishi. See also 5 4 4, sheesh.
——

2.. 2000
“Encountering Sorrow” in _The Quietest Singing_
By Darrell H. Y. Lum
Edited by Darrell H. Y. Lum, Joseph Stanton, Estelle Enoki

——
Or when Sakamoto like play wit us, his favorite team is Dicky Wee (we call him Pee Wee when he _go shishi_), Calvin Hee…
——

3. 17 May 2007
http://www.kiene.com/forums/showthread.php?11028-Tough%E9r-day <http://www.kiene.com/forums/showthread.php?11028-Tough%E9r-day>
by Otaru

——
I hope you went shishi on the man-o-war sting.
—— 

3. 2008 (Google-dated)
https://books.google.ca/books?id=OwpKAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22go+shishi%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=shishi <https://books.google.ca/books?id=OwpKAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22go+shishi%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=shishi>
West's Hawaii reports: cases decided in the Supreme Court, Intermediate Court of Appeals, Volume 117

——
… [S]o extreme mental emotional distress is not about losing control in the sense that you might go shishi in your pants or that you might fall on the floor because you can’t walk anymore.
—— 

4. 5 November 2009
http://hemomi.blogspot.ca/2009/11/hohono.html <http://hemomi.blogspot.ca/2009/11/hohono.html> 
by Llana

——
Or you know that strong mimi (urine) smell of a small child's shorts that have since dried up but you KNOW he went shishi and just won't admit it?
——

5. Comment in response to a post on 8 August 2016
https://www.instagram.com/p/BI4NkrCgWED/ <https://www.instagram.com/p/BI4NkrCgWED/>
comment by kimmu1988 

—— 
Went shishi part was so funny😂😂😂
—— 

Benjamin Barrett
Formerly of Seattle, WA
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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