Japanese Word of the Day: An Unsteady Gait

[sechan19]

千鳥足で歩く （ちどりあしであるく） chidoriashi de aruku—
(lit. to walk with the legs of a plover)
to walk with an unsteady gait; to stagger, teeter, weave, or reel

Comments

[foxxydancr.livejournal.com]

i thought plovers ran very fast - wouldn't have thought they were unsteady birds!

[reteva.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was kind of surprised by that, too. But plovers (chidorichidori ni susumu (to zigzag) and chidori zaseki haichi (staggered seating).

[andronicus-rex.livejournal.com]

Maybe plovers are like bicycles: when they move, they're just moving fast enough to camouflage how wobbly and unbalanced they are.

[reteva.livejournal.com]

This comment got messed up somehow in posting. It should read: "But plovers (chidori) are clearly associated with staggering and weaving. Other related words include chidori ni susumu (to zigzag) and chidori zaseki haichi (staggered seating)." Not sure why it got so garbled. Maybe I screwed up the HTML commands or something... Apologies!

[reteva.livejournal.com]

+1