- I see this number in yoyo ALOT now. 44clash, mod 44 and the number 44 is in a ton of peoples screennames from all over the world. So what gives? What’s up with 44?
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I thought it was because 44 is similar to the word yoyo in Japanese. If someone has more info or a better description please correct me.
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Number 4 in Japanese is “yon” which sounds similar to yo so 44 is “yon-yon” (this is a word play, instead of saying yon juu yon) sounds like yoyo
And this starts from 44:recreation now know as Yoyorecreation
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Ahh ok. I assumed it was something like this and 44 meant yoyo. But i was thinking in a T9 kinda way which doesn’t work for yoyo. Lol
The number 44 means “yon yon” in japanese and it became a slang term for yoyo if I remember correctly
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Thank you for asking this question. It’s been on my mind for a long time. I do think it is associated with Yo-yo, but I also see ヨーヨー as the direct translation so I’ve been wondering. Maybe the slang term as you guys have mentioned.
I did a search and got this…Sorry, no results for “44” in the English-Japanese Dictionary. Maybe the ヨー became 4.
I asked my bro in Japan about it and this is what they said with also an example of how numbers can be puns in Japanese using one piece as an example.
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i’m just rehashing what’s already been said really but to explain further, ヨ is the katakana character for the ‘yo’ sound; katakana (as opposed to hiragana or kanji) is used mostly for foreign transliterated words. The ー character indicates to stretch/emphasize the preceding sound (think “long o” sound in english), thus “yo-yo”.
The number 4 in japanese (四) can be pronounced as either “shi” (hiragana: し ) or “yon” (hiragana: よん, よ=yo, ん=“n”) depending on context; additionally as mentioned elsewhere the ‘n’ sometimes isn’t enunciated.
Goroawase (“phonetic matching”) is a common form of wordplay in japanese where homophonous words are associated with a given series of letters, numbers, or symbols. Some examples would be:
- 39 can be read as “san-kyū”, referring to “thank you” in English.
- 109 can be read as “tō-kyū”. The 109 department store in Shibuya, Tokyo is often read as “ichi-maru-kyū”, but the number 109 was selected as the alternative reading “tō-kyū” is a reference to Tokyu Corporation, the group that owns the building.
- 428 can be read as “shi-bu-ya”, referring to the Shibuya area of Tokyo
- 2525 can be read as “ni-ko-ni-ko” (ニコニコ) and refers to Niconico
- (not exactly the same but) in the K-ON song Gohan wa Okazu (“Rice as a Side Dish”) the chorus contains this pun “１・２・３・４・GO・HA・N！” or “Ichi・ni・san・shi・go・ha・n!”; “go” is how you pronounce the number 5 in japanese, “gohan” in japanese can either refer to rice or a meal itself.
Thus we can see how 44 can then be read as “yo-yo”, as popularized by yoyorecreation (neé 44:recreation) and now in ubiquitous use across the international community regardless of a player’s mother tongue.
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Thanks for filling in the detail.
This all makes sense now. And also explains license plates on Japanese cars (modded car scene cars) with 2 or 3 numbers with odd spacing and stuff. But if they are supposed to be read as a word, that makes a ton of sense.
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Ditch Down 44 / DD 44 = all of the above + 4th letter of the alphabet.
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