There are certain words in different languages that are brilliantly evocative and yet challenging to fully translate. Yiddish has the word shlimazl, which basically means a perpetually unlucky person. German has the word Backpfeifengesicht, which roughly means a face that is badly in need of a fist. And then there’s the Japanese word tsundoku, which perfectly describes the state of my apartment – buying books and letting them pile up unread.
The term tsundoku dates back to the Meiji era (1868–1912) in Japan and originates from a pun. Literally meaning reading pile, tsundoku is written in Japanese as 積ん読. So, while tsunde oku means to let something pile up and is written 積んでおく, a witty alteration by swapping oku (おく) in tsunde oku for doku (読) – meaning to read – led to the birth of the term tsundoku.
With other Japanese words like karaoke, tsunami, and otaku entering the English language, it’s about time for tsundoku to join the ranks. Perhaps we need a term for unread ebooks languishing on Kindle too. E-Tsundoku? Tsunkindle? Ponder over it for a while.
The charming illustration above was created when a Redditor asked his daughter to illustrate the word “Tsundoku,” and she delivered brilliantly.
Note: A previous version of this post was featured on our site back in July 2014.
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Jonathan Crow is a Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hollywood Reporter, and other publications. Follow him at @jonccrow and check out his art blog Veeptopus.
