![[Welcome to Sensei's Library!]](images/stone-hello.png "Sensei's Library")
Does anyone have any alternative name for the term Open Skirt? It sounds a bit non-pc to me?
During lessons from Guo Juan she uses the term open door. This is usually in the context where a player is trying to make a Base along the side. Guo Juan explains this as: You are trying to build a house (base), but if you play on the fourth line here, you leave the door open and your opponent can play inside (usually a slide under).
The term "suso" in Japanese means the surrounding bottom or lower area of some bulky object. For instance, "suso-no" can mean the flat area around the bottom of a mountain. In clothing terms, it would more often be "hem" than "skirt".
If one were looking for a more PC term to use in English, probably "open bottom" ("exposed bottom"?) or "open at the bottom" would be appropriate. It remains to be seen how one would then translate "ryo-susoaki".
However, "open skirt" seems pretty established.
I rather like the "open door" suggested elsewhere, and also the ironical PC jokes. I did once use "mousehole", with tongue in cheek because it was the year of the mouse.
But we need to get it established that (as kokiri) says that "skirt" has its base meaning of edge, as in outskirts, skirt around, skirting board. The base meaning of the Japanese suso is exactly the same (the edge of something). It does not have to be of something bulky - after all, kimonos, hair (as in suso-gari - short back and sides) and horse's hooves aren't bulky. It doesn't even have be about clothing, though that may be a common usage, but if it is, then hem may be a little inaccurate. Isn't a hem something turned up, and isn't the Japanese for that suso-mawashi?
We may need also to establish if there is a Brit/Yank dichotomy here. Like kokiri, I've never taken a priapistic view of open skirt and have never heard anyone else snigger about it. But any references to "bottom" will produce sniggers of seismic proportions over here. Or was that suggestion also ironic?