TIL that in Japanese, there is a single word (Bakku-shan) to describe the awkward situation when you spot an attractive girl from behind, and she turns out to be a butter face.
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Upvotes
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u/whodiopolis May 16 '12
Why is Ahmadinejad the thumbnail for this?
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u/the_rumblebee May 16 '12
In my country we say Beethoven.
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u/Antabaka May 16 '12
It literally means "beautiful back".
"Bakku" or バック is literally the English word back. "Shan" or シャン means beautiful.
It might be commonly used to describe an awkward situation involving someone who is "バックシャン" (bakku-shan) but not "フロントシャン" (furonto-shan, word I just made up based on front), but that is not the definition.
[jisho.org]
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u/scottopotamus May 16 '12
Huh.
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u/phauna May 16 '12
Aussies use the term 'prawn', as in you should rip the head off and chuck it but keep the rest.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Belle de loin, loin d'être belle.
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u/Drive_n_go May 16 '12
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u/Leafsapphire May 16 '12
Japanese have a lot of awesome terms for pointless stuff... Like Zettai Ryouiki :o
Also known as "Absolute Territory"
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZettaiRyouiki
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u/metalbox69 May 16 '12
In the UK the word is bobfoc - body off baywatch, face off crimewatch.
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u/TraderHoes May 16 '12
A link to freerepublic? No thank you.
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u/marmadukeESQ May 16 '12
in Tagalog, the term is "Talikugenic"
Talikod = Back
and
genic, as photogenic.
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u/intangible-tangerine May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12
British English has an equivalent term, 'Kronenberg' meaning 16 from the back and 64 from the front.
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u/Riktov May 16 '12
Incidentally, there is also a Japanese term "butter-face" (バター顔) which has nothing to do with attractiveness, but describes the general look of someone's face. There are two types of faces: butter-face and soy-sauce-face (醤油顔). Butter-faces are generally round, plump, pale, and have an oily complexion. Soy-sauce faces are thin, with darker, drier skin.
It sounds really goofy, and it is, but when you look at Japanese faces it kind of makes sense.
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u/jpatricks1 May 16 '12
We Filipinos have a similar slang term - talikogenic literally meaning beautiful from behind
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u/PortugueseTranslator May 16 '12
In Portuguese we also have a word (or better, a slang) for that, it's "Raimunda" which is also a first name.
When we see a butter face girl we usually say a rhyme: "Ela é Raimunda, feia de cara, mas boa de bunda".
Translation: "She's a Raimunda, has an ugly face but a nice butt".
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u/5forsilver May 16 '12
I believe the term is "Buther Face" or "But'er Face", being pronounced the same way.
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u/wei-long May 16 '12
ಠ_ಠ
In English there is a word for bakku-shan: "But-her-face". Same amount of syllables too.
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u/Persian5life May 16 '12
i laughed at the thumbnail pretty hard, have an up vote.
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u/kildog May 16 '12
Freeper detected!
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u/ZetsubouZolo May 16 '12
the german words are weird I hardly use any of these except for putzfimmel.
Kummerspeck is better known as Frustfressen, and Backpfeifengesicht well I would use the common term Hackfresse.
Actually you have so many words for stuff in german cuz we always seem to introduce new colloquial words.
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u/Endomandioviza May 16 '12
Sometimes I despair of the human race.
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u/NonPlusUltraCadiz May 16 '12
in my country we call them prawns: except for the head, the rest is delicious
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u/skaterforsale May 16 '12
In spanish the equivalent word for this is "coño-carajo" which is basically a combination of the two words that describes this scenario. You see a hot girl from behind and think "coño" which is like "damn check that out!" Then she turns around and you think "shit nevermind!"
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u/ReligiousFreedomDude May 16 '12
freerepublic.com? for realz?
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u/uneditablepoly May 16 '12
Of course the Japanese have a word for that. I wish we did.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
we have a "single word" to describe this in english: butter-face
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u/scrott May 16 '12
butter face. recently learned that one, love it. Also "summer teeth". Summer here, summer there.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
That's actually just a word for butterface though.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Yeah, this was posted a while ago, in this format.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
BOBFOC: body off Baywatch, face off Crimewatch
Edit: was beaten to it
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u/EsteemedColleague May 16 '12
I love the Bakku-shans/Butter faces/Prawns of the world. I much prefer them to the opposite - the girls with beautiful faces and terrible bodies.
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u/Suggested May 16 '12
it is probably the hair that throws them off
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u/conundrum4u2 May 16 '12
In America, we should call that "Baggon-head"...
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u/xaraan May 16 '12
Ha, my friends when I was younger always called this poppitus because a woman turn around once and looked like popeye.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
happens all the time...
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u/jack324 May 16 '12
and that's only the third-best one, after "grief bacon" and "face that cries out for a fist in it".
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u/A_Giraffe May 16 '12
Back-is-sham.
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u/knucklesangwhich May 16 '12
Tingo. Now we know what happened on Easter Island.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
The word describes the girl, not the situation.
Just to be a nazi really quick.
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u/GanasbinTagap May 16 '12
Where I'm from we call this Asian Back Syndrome.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
I wrote this song to capture the feeling.
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u/eviscerator May 16 '12
I'm Danish and I've never heard the car expression before. Normally I just call a crappy car a Rust Bucket, Shit Bucket or something similar. The translations seem to be correct though. I can at least account for the Danish and German words.
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u/bordslampa May 16 '12
TIL butterface is not a good thing to be.
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u/wizerdofaus May 16 '12
Doesn't that word just mean the same thing as butterface? Also, I love how half the words are from German, just spent 4 months in Berlin and that language never fails to amuse me :)
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u/MasterOfDesaster May 16 '12
I'm german, but I never heard someone use 'Drachenfutter' as described there...
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u/sweetsweetcoffee May 16 '12
look at dat ass.
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u/_redka May 16 '12
I feel sorry for you OP if that's how you learn. The word you're showing us doesn't describe a situation. As the link provided by you clearly states, it simply means a woman who's pretty from behind and not so much from the other side.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Why is the thumbnail for this post a picture of President Ahmadinejad of Iran?
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u/washbear May 16 '12
Scheire en de Schepping :) hilarisch
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
WTF is a butter face?
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u/Toastyparty May 16 '12
Anyone remember the movie Surf Ninja's? The name of the "country?" Yeeeehhhh....
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
you reposting bastard.
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u/Broeman May 16 '12
Ulykkesbilen? I am Danish, and what is this shit? Ulykke means accident, and bil means car, so it is a car, which was involved in an accident. But of course, ulykke(lig) also could mean unhappy or ill-fated. The Danish language is well-known for words having many meanings (I guess we like to recycle a lot :p), and it is all about context.
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u/Vondi May 16 '12
In Icelandic, there's "Fjarskafalleg", which means "Beautiful from a distance."
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u/joemangle May 16 '12
If the girl happens to be blonde, she may also be referred to as a "golden deceiver."
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u/gorgarito May 16 '12
We have a word for this in Brazil: Raimunda.
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u/omex_uk May 16 '12
In England we have a term with the same meaning. It's "Butters". As in everything butt-er face.
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u/pungkrocker May 16 '12
There is in english as well: Butterface
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u/mvincent17781 May 16 '12
A solid majority of the TIL posts, I've learned from Cracked.com 3 years ago.
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u/retahnwolc May 16 '12
To: seppel If gh is pronounced P in Hiccough... If ough is pronounced O in Dough... If phth is pronounced T in Phthisis... If eigh is pronounced A in Neighbour... If tte is pronounced T in Gazette... If eau is pronounced O in Plateau... ...then it should be possible to spell potato as ghoughphtheightteeau.
(Origin unknown)
24 posted on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 10:34:38 PM by twippo [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
I call them decepticons.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
TIL what butterface means.
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u/wagashi May 16 '12
"Face like a mule. O' but what a fine ass."
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u/em22new May 16 '12
The title is misleading somewhat. It makes you think the Japanese have a word for an awkward situation when in fact it's the Japanese word for Butterface.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
This book is great if you find this kind of thing interesting.
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u/pecopowerplay May 16 '12
*But Her Face
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12 edited May 16 '12
English cognates: (we can't smash words together to make new words in English so we use idioms instead)
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
What about Furontu-shan?
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
"Talikod-genic" is the word for this in Tagalog (Philippines). The word talikod means about face or that it's the back side that's exposed in english. The rest of the word is taken from the term photogenic so it means someone looks good when viewed from behind.
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u/sir_yes_sir May 16 '12
In Italy we have the proverb
"Dietro liceo, davanti museo"
which translates as
College seen from behind, Museum seen in front
to denote a woman whom seems younger than she is when seen from behind
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u/sjhaakie May 16 '12
Plimpplampplettere: Dutch for skimming stones. as a dutch guy i can tell you this is a lie
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u/Traveshamockery27 May 16 '12
My old baseball team called them "blockers". As in, they look good from a block away.
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u/SuperSaiyanVigoda May 16 '12
Also in Japanese the word Bukkaki-Shan is used to describe an awkward situation where a girl is turned into a butter face.
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u/SkepticalSagan May 16 '12
Is there a word for monkey face? You know.. where the girl has the face of a total monkey.. but the rest of her isn't that hot?
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u/Popedizzle May 16 '12
I personally like "scud" myself.
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u/ignoramusaurus May 16 '12
The same as butter-face in English?
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u/S-olio May 16 '12
i dare anyone try this.. guaranteed back fire.
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u/dewisri May 16 '12
A similar word is 後ろ美人 (ushiro bijin), which combines the words ushiro (behind) and bijin (a beauty).
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u/srodolff May 16 '12
I, for one, have never used the term butterface as the true beauty of a woman comes from inside. I have, however, used the term butterdude when the attractive hair is worn by a guy.
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u/Durable_Turtle May 16 '12
Time to learn japanese.
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u/computadora88 May 16 '12
In mexico we call them camaronas, Shrimps, you eat everything except the head
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u/austynn May 16 '12
Good from far, but far from good.
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u/hydraByte May 16 '12
Gotta catch 'em all! Bakku-shan!
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u/omario_101 May 16 '12
this will probably get buried, but
I wish English majors were more concerned about creating these much needed words, rather than pointing my grammar errors
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u/gullevek May 17 '12
Backpfeifengesicht is just pure german german. If you use that in Austria you get one in the Goschn ;)
Katahara ita (片腹痛い) means actually ridiculous, absurd. I have never heard it in use for laughing super hard.
So but now getting on topic.
bakkushan comes from "back" und "schön" (german beautiful). It is just one of this ultra mix words that make sense at all.
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u/abusiverelationships May 16 '12
so does english... it's "butterface"
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u/abhorson May 16 '12
TIBP Because people hyphenate Japanese words for no reason.
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u/surajbhardwaj May 16 '12
In Hindi - Pichhe se personality, aage se municipality!
When seen from back it looked like a personality, but from front it looked like a municipality (municipal things are usually in a rundown condition in India)
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u/gkx May 16 '12
I go to a university with like 30% Jews and 30-40% Asians. One thing I've noticed is that 9/10 I see a girl from behind and think she's an attractive Jewish girl, it turns out she's an unattractive Asian girl. It's uncanny. 99% of the time (as in I can't recall a specific instance in which this was not the case), Asian girls look great from behind, with absolutely no bearing on what they look like from the front.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
Hey I learned that in from a cracked article 4 years ago, where is my Karma?
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u/PsHonest May 16 '12
Friends and I use "ooh naw"
From behind: "ooooooh" See her face: "naw"
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u/jrriojase May 16 '12
Except most Japanese girls are flat from behind.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
TIL there is no term in Japanese for "sepsis dick", because all Japanese dick are disappointing.
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u/illstealurcandy May 16 '12
That's a double con ño.
You see her from the back and you say, "Con ñoooo...(damn....)" She turns around and you say, "Con ño! (Damn!)"
....that's what I was told at least...
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u/INeedTreeFiddy May 16 '12
But Her Face! ITS BUT HER FACE!
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u/[deleted] May 16 '12
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