Incorrectness or New Trend?

[masaegu]

S.V.P. Take a look at the images below of advertisement. If you have been studying Japanese a year or so, you will notice something weird in the grammar used in these.

Tell me what you think is wrong. You can also tell me that nothing is wrong. I will discuss this phenomenon after a few people have replied.

[KyleGoetz]

らぬきですよな。
Posting more to up the response count for you than to "guess" since I know the answer.

[jesselt]

食べれる is funny for me to say without including what is missing

[Cola]

But haven't "the kids", as it were, been talking like that for awhile? Of course it's grammatically incorrect insofar as a textbook goes, but you can see (hear) it all the time on TV and whatnot. Everyone knows it's incorrect, but I'm guessing advertisers use it to sound more casual and maybe hip, or at least less stiff.

[MMM]

Maybe my Japanese has gotten too colloquial, but thinking back to my school days, I am guessing the answer has something to do with ら.

[masaegu]

Thanks, everyone, for your reply!

As KyleGoetz stated, this phenomenon is named 「ら抜（ぬ）きことば」, literally meaning "ら-omitting words" and it is a major trend in our language. It occurs in the potential form of certain verbs. It has already existed for decades in the speaking part of the language, particularly among children.

The striking difference during the last decade or so is that many adult speakers have been using the 「ら抜きことば」 not only in casual speech but also in fairly formal and/or business situations. Even now, you would surely be corrceted if you used it in writing both in school and business. In people's day-to-day conversations, however, it appears utterly unstoppable.

Though I have been hearing it all my life, it still shocks me to visually see the 「ら抜きことば」 in advertisements such as the images above show. In any kind of formal writing, you will NOT see it. But how do we explain this to children or those who are studying Japanese as a foreign language? "In wide use but incorrect"? "Correct only by popular vote"? I happen to have grown up in a home that was and still is completely free of 「ら抜きことば」 and recently I feel like the foreigner in my own country.

[Maxful]

What exactly is the meaning of "ら抜きことば" and how does it work?

[masaegu]

Originally Posted by Maxful

What exactly is the meaning of "ら抜きことば" and how does it work?

As if I had not explained it at all.......

1. Write the potential forms of the verbs 「食べる」「着る」「見る」 just the way you have learned them.　

2. Compare these with the verb forms seen in the images in my opening post. What is the one big difference?

3. The term 「ら抜きことば」 will certainly reflect that one big difference.

[Nebelherz]

Maybe adverstiment tends generally to use spoken language or may it on purpose wrong, for sounds cool, modern or just want attention. I also see German ads with wrong grammar, as a word play or something. So it`s not just in Japan so, that adverstiment use incorrect grammar.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by masaegu

As if I had not explained it at all.......

1. Write the potential forms of the verbs 「食べる」「着る」「見る」 just the way you have learned them.　

2. Compare these with the verb forms seen in the images in my opening post. What is the one big difference?

3. The term 「ら抜きことば」 will certainly reflect that one big difference.

By now there has been enough time between masaegu's post and now for Maxful to try and figure it out on his own. If anyone's curious, ら抜きことば literally means "word with ら omitted." 食べられるー＞食べれる. The meaning doesn't change; it's like how Texans (I'm unsure if people do it elsewhere) might say "I'm gonna" instead of "I'm going to." In fact, many people (including myself) have shortened it even further: "Imma go to the store" instead of "I'm going to go to the store."

Hell, at one point, we shortened "I am" to "I'm"!

It's all under the umbrella term of "elision," or "the removal of one or more sounds from a word or phrase to make it easier to pronounce."