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The story
A thread on 5ch’s News Speed+ board is buzzing over an article claiming a student stopped attending school after being hit with words like “gross,” “ugh,” and “it’s totally over” during a junior high cooking class. The original piece, distributed by news.livedoor.com, argues that children’s poor vocabulary is fueling emotional outbursts and interpersonal trouble. Commenters were split: some agreed that “kids don’t read, so their vocabulary is a disaster,” while others pushed back with “adults’ vocabulary is just as dead” and “this isn’t really about smartphones — it’s a class issue that predates them.” Several posters also chimed in with trivia noting that the word “yabai” (roughly “yikes”/”crazy”) itself dates all the way back to the Edo period.
If children can’t put their feelings into words, the stress either explodes into an emotional outburst, or they give up, thinking “nobody understands me” or “there’s nothing I can do.” As a result, they can’t work through the problem in front of them and move forward.
Kids today tend to describe everything with extreme words like “yabai” (yikes), “uzai” (annoying), “kimoi” (gross), and “egui” (brutal). But when trouble arises, just repeating “yikes, yikes” changes nothing. It doesn’t help them think through solutions, communicate their feelings, or understand others.
“A breakdown in children’s language directly reflects a breakdown in their lives. Kids can’t understand each other, can’t express their own feelings, can’t consider others’ feelings, and can’t cooperate as a group. All of this stems from a breakdown in language.
Source: news.livedoor.com / Read the original article here
What people said
you've just got to toughen up and grow a thicker skin.
They've both got about the same level of vocabulary anyway.
They don't read books, so their vocabulary is a disaster
That's rough, man
Scum with zero concept of ethics or manners
Adults' vocabulary is just as dead, honestly
Nah, that's not it
There's always been plenty of this among 2ch/5ch posters too
It's just a certain class of parent and kid
↓
"Ugh" "It's totally over"
is
a classical Japanese phrase that's been around since the Edo period
Like, seriously yikes
Nah, that's honestly report-worthy behavior
He should count himself lucky he only got insulted
There are literal weapons right there — that's insane
If those words push someone over the edge and they snap, you're not avoiding a stabbing
Honestly, lack of imagination is part of the problem too
If you could picture what happens to you afterward, you wouldn't take shady "yami baito" gigs (illicit, often crime-linked part-time jobs) in the first place
Bash the young adults
Bash the middle-aged guys
Same rotation every time
When it's kids, that's really a problem with the generation that raised them
It's becoming more common in real life too
Leftists throw around "gross, gross" as well
even though they're filthy old geezers themselves lol
Squeeze it out of them — the student who said it, the classmates who just stood by,
and whoever was responsible for failing their duty of supervision
Don't take these sob-story articles at face value
Sometime after 2000, maybe?
It was already popular back when I was in elementary school in the '90s
"Yaba" goes back to the Edo period
Edo period
Edo's "yaba" (archery galleries where people shot arrows at targets for fun)
became hangouts for delinquents,
so sketchy types started being called "yabai" (yaba-i)
and that's how the word stuck
Still plenty of students like that even now
Go to any small-to-mid-size company and it's basically wall-to-wall middle-aged women talking like that lol
But… I never saw that girl again, so was that actually—
When you're a kid, your whole world tends to feel like just school, home, and the internet
Honestly, that sounds pretty peaceful
Edo period
"Kishoi" and "kimoi" are just people copying Kansai dialect
Re: #166
Huh, TIL
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The original article, distributed by news.livedoor.com, argues that children’s poor vocabulary undermines their ability to express emotions and resolve conflicts — but it gives no specifics on which school this happened at or what exactly occurred, and no survey data backing up a causal link to school refusal. On the thread, laments over declining vocabulary among young people ran alongside pushback like “adults are just as bad” and “this is about family environment and class, not smartphones,” splitting opinion between those who blame generational or technological shifts and those who point to the educational environment. There was also plenty of trivia about the origins of the word “yabai” (including the Edo-period “yaba” archery galleries), with some noting that expressing emotion in strong language isn’t necessarily a uniquely modern phenomenon. At the same time, skepticism toward the original article’s lack of specifics — “don’t take sob-story articles at face value” — also surfaced, offering a counterpoint to taking the article’s claims at face value.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Student Stops Attending School After Being Called ‘Gross,’ ‘Ugh,’ ‘It’s Totally Over’ During Cooking Class… The Vocabulary Problem Among Children.”
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