Chicago ¨C There¡¯s nothing like age to make you humble. I¡¯m turning a nice, round number later this year ¡ª let¡¯s just say I¡¯m ¥¢¥é¥Õ¥©©` (²¹°ù²¹´Ú¨, around 40) and leave it at that ¡ª and perhaps because of that, the phrase ¤¤¤¤šr (ii toshi) has been rattling around in my mind.
If you take ¤¤¤¤šr too literally, you end up with an English term like ¡°good age.¡± But a more accurate translation would be ¡°decent age¡± or ¡°sensible age,¡± at least in a vacuum without any context.
However, language is insidious. While I was sitting here chuckling at myself for getting ¡°pretty old,¡± I didn¡¯t realize until I looked into the phrase further that it can actually have quite detrimental effects on people, depending on how it¡¯s used.
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