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多芸は無芸 tagei wa mugei Too Many Accomplishments Make No Accomplishments

多芸は無芸 (tagei wa mugei), to have many accomplishments is to have none, is a Japanese proverb. Its two words are set against each other in 1740, and the four characters are in print by 1906. This study sets it beside a Chinese fable of a tailor and a conjurer and the English Jack of all trades.

Japanese Scroll of Too Many Accomplishments Make No Accomplishments (tagei wa mugei) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Too Many Accomplishments Make No Accomplishments多芸は無芸tagei wa mugei

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Abstract

多芸は無芸, to have many accomplishments is to have none, is a Japanese proverb first printed in its four-character form in 1906, when the Kyoto scholar 藤井乙男 filed it among proverbs built on antithesis; the dictionary that dates every proverb it can gives it no date. Its two words were already set against each other in 1740, when a Shingaku moralist headed a section of his treatise on the household trades 多藝は無藝に如ざるの辨, that many arts are not as good as none [1]. Beside it stand a Chinese fable of a tailor and a conjurer, printed for Japanese readers in 1876, and an English proverb, Jack of all trades and master of none, equated with it in a dictionary of 1915. Whether the four characters were cut from the older maxim or made again, no source says.

Overview

The sense. One sense, from 1906 to today: the person of many accomplishments has mastered none. The treatise of 1740 says more: 多藝なる者は無藝には劣り, the many-skilled is worse off than the unskilled, and a man should keep to the trade he was given and not envy other arts [1]. What changes after 1906 is the frame around it. 藤井 hears a figure of speech first, a proverb that works by saying a thing is its opposite. The 1916 comparative dictionary hears a proverb every nation has. The 1926 manual hears a maxim about trades and livelihood, and prints it between the two older proverbs that argue whether skill helps or harms. The 1931 bankers hear an accusation. The modern dictionaries gloss it flat and hand the reader the English. No source reads it as a compliment, and none of the dictionaries gives it a date.

The words. Four characters and a particle. 多芸, tagei, is 多 many and 芸 gei, and 芸 is the word for an accomplishment, an art, a skill, a trick: the 芸 of 芸事, the polite accomplishments, and of 芸者, the woman who has them. 無芸, mugei, is its negative, without accomplishment, the word of the mocking compound 無芸大食, no art but a large appetite. は, wa, marks the topic. The line is built as a contradiction: 多芸 is 無芸, many accomplishments are no accomplishment. 藤井乙男, the Kyoto scholar who compiled the first great Japanese proverb dictionary, filed it in 1906 and again in 1929 among the proverbs made by antithesis, with 逢うは別れの始め, to meet is the beginning of parting, 論語読みの論語知らず, the reader of the Analects who knows no Analects, and 負けるが勝ち, losing is winning [2]. The form is the point: the proverb does not say that many skills are a disadvantage, it says they add up to nothing. The modern dictionaries agree on the sense and do not date it. 精選版日本国語大辞典: 多芸であることは、ひとつの芸に深く通じることができにくく、結局無芸に等しいということ, to be many-skilled is to find it hard to go deep in any one, and so to be, in the end, the same as unskilled; this dictionary gives a first attestation wherever it has one, and gives none here. デジタル大辞泉: 多芸の者は、かえって一つの芸に精通しにくく、すぐれた芸をもっていないということ. ことわざを知る辞典: 多くのことに手を付けては、一つのことに精通することはできない, a hand in many things, mastery of none, with the English A Jack of all trades is a master of none printed beside it [3]. The reading is tagei wa mugei. The old form 多藝 and the modern 多芸 are one word. The four-character wording has not varied in any witness since 1906; the one older witness writes a comparison, 多藝は無藝に如ざる, many arts are not as good as none, where the proverb writes an equation [1].

The proverb in English. The English idiom had been put into Japanese thirty years before the four characters were printed. Apperson's historical dictionary dates Jack of all trades in English to 1618 [4]. Hepburn's Japanese-English dictionary of 1872 has nothing under either word [5]. The English-Japanese dictionaries of 1904 and 1911 explain Jack of all trades in prose, 諸藝に通ずる人, a man versed in every art, 萬能にして一能も有せざる人, all-capable and without one capability, and offer no Japanese proverb for it [6][7]. The Meiji bilingual dictionaries that carry every other proverb in this family, ロイド 1907, 和田垣 1908, 井上 1909 and 1911, 渡部 1910, do not carry this one. 斎藤秀三郎's idiom dictionary of 1915 gives the earliest known equation, under trade, and hears the older Japanese proverb under the new one and prints both [8]; Takenobu Yoshitarō 武信由太郎's dictionary of 1918 makes the equation three times [9]. The first English literal is in the Fujiya Hotel's We Japanese by 1936, too many accomplishments, no accomplishment after all, with Jack of all trades beside it [10]. Of the later paperbacks, Buchanan in 1965 gives many accomplishments are no accomplishments [11], Galef in 1987 gives too many accomplishments make no accomplishment [12], Trimnell in 2004 gives a reading rather than a rendering [13], and Galef's 2012 reissue adds a cross-reference to another proverb in this family [14].

The historical record

1740. 河田正矩, 家業道徳論, On the Morality of the Household Trade, a Shingaku treatise. 河田正矩, called 孤松, a landowning farmer of Sanuki who had studied 心学 and died in 1768, printed it in three books in 1740, and it was printed again in 1760 and 1782 [1]. The fourth section of the first book is headed 多藝ハ無藝に如ざるの辨, that many arts are not as good as none, and it runs: 世人我禀得たる職業を、則道と心得て能是を務行ひ、其餘の藝能を羨み習ふ事なかれ、これ則異端なり、多藝なる者は無藝には劣り、多智なる者は無智には如ず, let people take the trade they were given as their Way, do it well, and not envy and learn the other arts; that is heresy. The many-skilled is worse off than the unskilled, the many-knowing not as good as the unknowing; and it closes on the archer and the musketeer, who shut one eye to sight the target [1]. The two words of the proverb, set against each other, 166 years before the four characters are printed, as a comparison rather than an equation, and as the heading of a household moral; the section nowhere calls it a saying.

1875. William Scarborough, A Collection of Chinese Proverbs, Shanghai. Number 317, among the sayings of traders: 百藝無如一藝精, Better be master of one than Jack of all trades [15]. The earliest pairing of the Chinese line with the English proverb in the books read for this history.

1876. 漢譯伊蘇普譚, the Chinese Aesop, re-cut in Tokyo. The title page names a Hong Kong original (香港英華書院原本), the Tokyo scholar 阿部弘国 who added reading marks, and the date, the ninth month of Meiji 9; a 1911 study counts seventy-three fables and names Ōtsuki Bankei 大槻磐渓's preface. Its fable 裁縫戲法, The Tailor and the Conjurer, is the story behind everything that follows. 裁縫匠與變戲法者評論世事。匠曰、我只會裁縫、別無所長、難以自護、何如足下多才多藝、定自不妨。戲法者曰、汝勿憂、吾當授汝方法、遂將一二易學者教之。忽遇年歲饑荒、人民困苦、其戲法者經旬不發市。而裁縫匠究係世所必需、尚能糊口。於是戲法者反求於匠人。俗云、百藝無如一藝精是也. A tailor and a conjurer were discussing the world. The tailor said: I can only sew, I have nothing else, I could hardly protect myself; how unlike you, with your many talents and many arts, who will surely never be in want. The conjurer said: do not worry, I will teach you my methods, and taught him one or two easy tricks. A famine came, the people suffered, and for ten days the conjurer had no market; but tailoring is what the world needs, and it kept the tailor fed, and so the conjurer came begging to the tailor. As the common saying goes: a hundred arts are not as good as one art perfected. This is a Chinese proverb in a Chinese book, printed for Japanese readers of classical Chinese. It is not the Japanese proverb, and no Japanese source says the Japanese proverb was made from it; but every Japanese dictionary that names a source for 多芸は無芸 names this line, and this book [16].

1887. 安藤次郎, 通俗一語千金集 英文插訳, a reader of Chinese sayings with English beside them. Item 9: 百藝無如一藝精 = Better be master of one than Jack of all trades. The Chinese line and the English proverb are set side by side in a Japanese schoolbook two decades before the four-character proverb appears between them [17]. The English is Scarborough's of 1875, word for word [15].

1906. 藤井乙男, 俗諺論, an essay on the proverb as a form. 多藝は無藝 closes a list of proverbs built on antithesis: 逢ふは別れの始、合せものは離れもの、譽むるは毀るの基、兄弟は他人の始、淺い川も深く渡れ、論語よみの論語知らず、遠くて近きは男女の中、人を使ふは使はるゝ、負けるが勝、損して得とれ、知つて知らざれ、多藝は無藝、の類これなり. This is the earliest known print of the proverb in its four-character form: the National Diet Library's full text, read oldest first, returns nothing earlier under 多藝は無藝 or 多芸は無芸 [18]. The one older witness is the long form of 1740 [1].

1906. 俚諺辞典, a proverb dictionary of the same year. 多藝は無藝 多藝の者は、一藝も秀でたるものなしとの意, the many-skilled has not one skill in which he excels. The plainest gloss, and the one every later dictionary repeats [19].

1910. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典, the first great dictionary of Japanese proverbs. 【多藝ハ無藝】〔漢譯伊蘇普譚〕百藝無如一藝精。Jack of all trades, and master of none. He that sips many arts drinks none. Who does all he may never does well.—Ital. Where 藤井 has a Japanese source, an Edo comedy or a Noh play, he names it; here he names only the Chinese Aesop and three European proverbs, the English Jack, an English line about sipping, and an Italian one. Under a second headword he records the Chinese line as a Japanese saying in its own right: 【百藝ハ一藝ノ精シキニ如カズ】多藝ハ無藝ともいふ, also said as 多芸は無芸. And under two older Japanese sayings he points back to it: 【何デモ來イニ名人ナシ】多藝ハ無藝の意, no master among the anything-goes: the sense of 多芸は無芸, and 【八細工七貧乏】多藝の人にして貧乏するをいふ, eight crafts, seven poverties: said of the many-skilled who stays poor [20].

1916. 神田雄次郎, 万国共通ことわざ集, a dictionary of proverbs common to many nations. 多藝は無藝 heads an entry that gives its kin by country: from England 萬藝足つて一能なし, all the arts and not one ability, 多藝を誇るものは能く其一藝をだに飮むことなし, he who boasts many arts cannot drink even one of them, and 萬能は事缺く, the all-capable is short of something; from China 百藝無如一藝精, with the Aesop named as its source; and an Italian line. The Japanese proverb is filed as one member of an international set, ten years after it first appears [21].

1926. 修養亀鑑, a manual of self-cultivation. 多藝は無藝 所謂多業に涉るものは一業を爲す得ず, the so-called: he who spreads himself over many trades cannot carry out one, printed between 藝は身の仇, accomplishment is the body's enemy, and 藝は身を助く, accomplishment saves the body, the two older proverbs that argue with each other about whether a skill is worth having [22].

1931. 金融研究会, a research report on banking. 大都會に於ける集成的大銀行は…『多藝は無藝』と云ふ非難は當らぬ, the criticism that the great combined banks of the big cities are "many arts, no art" does not hold. The proverb as a live figure in economic prose, quoted in order to be refuted: by 1931 it was the standing objection to doing everything at once [23].

1933. 俚諺大辞典. 【多藝は無藝】多藝の者は、一藝も卓越したるものなしとの意。〔漢譯伊蘇普譚〕「百藝無如一藝精」. The 1906 gloss, with 藤井's Chinese source note attached; the dictionaries have converged [24].

The dictionaries today. The three dictionaries quoted under Overview's The words, none with a date [3].

What is not a source. The Chinese line 百藝無如一藝精, a hundred arts are not as good as one art perfected, is what the dictionaries set beside the proverb, not what they derive it from; 藤井 names it as he names the English and Italian proverbs, as kin. The English Jack of all trades and master of none is likewise a pairing, first made for the Chinese line in Scarborough's collection of 1875 and repeated in a Japanese book in 1887, and for the Japanese one in 1915. Neither is the proverb's origin. The two words were set against each other in Japanese by 1740, in 河田's heading; whether the four characters were cut from that maxim or made again in the decades when the Chinese Aesop and the English Jack were in print in Japan, no source says, and no one has named who first wrote them. Japanese did not lack the thought before 1906, and the sayings that carry it are dated: 八細工七貧乏, eight crafts, seven poverties, in print by 1889 and in a proverb dictionary of 1901 [25]; 器用貧乏, the deft man's poverty, the word the example dictionaries still put beside it, in a proverb list of 1893 and in Ehmann's German collection of 1897 [26][27]; and the Chinese line itself read as Japanese, 百芸は一芸の精しきに如かず, in the same German collection [27]. 何でも来いに名人なし, no master among the anything-goes, which 藤井 gives in 1910 as the sense of 多芸は無芸, has no witness before his [20]. Japanese also holds the opposite: 諸芸二百石、無芸高なし, arts earn two hundred koku; no art, no stipend, from Hiraga Gennai 平賀源内's satire 放屁論, and 芸者百石無芸高なし from the Edo lexicon 俚言集覧, both recorded by 藤井 [20].

The proverb in English

1876. Ernest Satow and Ishibashi Masakata, An English-Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language, page 903. Under trade: to be jack of all trades and master of none, mangei (萬藝) ni watari, ichigei ni juku (熟) shinai: the English idiom rendered by a description, thirty years before the Japanese proverb is printed [28].

1915. 斎藤秀三郎, 熟語本位英和中辞典, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, page 1424, under trade. To be Jack of all trades and master of none. 多藝は無藝(八細工七貧乏). The earliest known equation, and Saitō hears the older Japanese proverb under the new one and prints both. Under Jack, page 656, he gives the English a different Japanese, 萬藝足つて一能足らず(七細工八貧乏), all the arts and not one ability. The printing of 1918 carries both entries on the same pages [8].

1918. Takenobu Yoshitarō, 武信和英大辞典, Sanseidō, page 2038, under tagei. 多藝は無藝. Jack of all trades and master of none. The dictionary makes the equation three times, under 藝, under 無藝 and under 多藝 [9].

1923. 鈴木芳松, 英文和訳の急所, a translation textbook. 私は彼に注意してやつたが所謂「多藝は無藝」である, I warned him, but he is what they call "many arts, no art". The equation taught as the so-called, a phrase students were expected to recognize [29].

By 1936. We Japanese, the Fujiya Hotel's book of Japanese customs, in its proverb list. TAGEI WA MUGEI. Too many accomplishments, no accomplishment after all, and beside it Jack of all trades [10]. The first English literal, and the one the later paperbacks keep.

1946. スタンダード和英大辞典. 百藝ニ通ジテ一藝ニ秀デズ (He is a) Jack of all trades and master of none. The Chinese line, back-translated into a Japanese sentence, offered as the Japanese for the English [30].

1958. Okada Rokuo, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, page 151. Tagei wa mugei. Many-sidedness is little better than no accomplishment. To know all is to know nothing. "Jack of all trades and master of none." [31]

1965. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, pages 180–181, chapter PRACTICALITY. Taigei wa mugei: "Many accomplishments are no accomplishments." If you have too many hobbies you will be master of none. English parallel: Jack of all trades and master of none. Buchanan romanizes the proverb Taigei, a misreading (多 is ta). His hobbies is a shade the Japanese does not have: 芸 is an accomplishment or an art, something one is trained in, not a pastime. His literal, many accomplishments are no accomplishments, is twenty-two years older than Galef's. He cites no source [11].

1968 to 1974. The idiom's other Japanese partners. The English attaches to other sayings in the same years: Corwin in 1968 gives A Jack of all trades and master of none for へたの横好き [32]; Nelson's character dictionary of 1974 for 器用貧乏 [33]; Kenkyūsha's undated school dictionary glosses it 何でもやるが特に上達した藝のない人 and pairs it with 七細工八貧乏 [34].

1980. 研究社, Kenkyūsha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, fifth edition, page 952. Under Jack: Jack of all trades, and master of none. (諺) 何でもやれる人にひいでた芸はない, 「多芸は無芸」 [35].

1987. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Tuttle, number 18, page 50. Tagei wa mugei. / Too many accomplishments make no accomplishment., and, marked as the English equivalent, Jack of all trades, master of none. His literal is We Japanese's made into a sentence; he gives the English equation and no source [12].

2004. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest, page 138. Jack of all trades, master of none, then: Dabblers can sometimes impress people with their superficial knowledge of many subjects. However, a person who knows a little bit about everything probably doesn't have a deep understanding of any one area. This proverb encourages people to focus on one thing, and avoid the temptation to "major in minors." A reading, not a source [13].

2012. David Galef, Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom, Tuttle, number 18, page 36. The 1987 and 2000 books reissued in one volume. The entry as in 1987, with a commentary the 1987 entry did not carry: Versatility is not a virtue prized much in Japanese society, nor in trade and the arts, where people make a reputation based on one specific skill or technique. This proverb is an indirect argument for specialization. See 27, Mochi wa mochiya: "For rice cakes, go to the rice-cake maker." The cross-reference is apt; the claim about Japanese society is Galef's own, cites nothing, and sits badly on a proverb with an English twin and a Chinese cousin, both older than it [14].

Today. JMdict: a jack of all trades is a master of none [36]. Jack of all trades explains the contradiction away. What a rendering must keep: the paradox, many are none; the word accomplishment or art for 芸, not hobby or skill; and no suggestion that the four characters are old.

A reading

The four characters are modern, first printed in 1906 and equated with the English in 1915, and they stand beside a Chinese fable's moral that Japanese readers had known since 1876. The thought and its two words are not modern: a Shingaku treatise of 1740 ranks many arts below none, and 八細工七貧乏 and 器用貧乏 were current before the proverb was printed. My own reading is that the proverb is a warning to the versatile, that it reads like the 1740 heading made milder, many arts no longer worse than none but equal to it, and that Japanese has always held both sides of the argument: 芸は身を助く, an accomplishment saves you, sits one line from it in the 1926 manual, and 源内's arts earn a stipend; no art, no ceiling is its exact counter.

References

  1. 河田正矩『家業道徳論』, 三冊, 元文5 (1740); printed again 宝暦10 (1760) and 天明2 (1782). 国書データベース, the work and its printings. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/2178576 · the 天明2 (1782) printing, 京都 菊屋安兵衛, 小泉吉永 collection, 巻上 目録 (canvas 2) and leaf 5, 四 多藝ハ無藝に如ざるの辨 (canvas 7), doi 10.20730/100299114. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100299114 · the typeset in 『通俗経済文庫』 巻9, 日本経済叢書刊行会, 1917, 家業道徳論 巻上. National Diet Library pid 953494, scan 150. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/953494/1/150 · the typeset in 『近世庶民教育思想』, 1979, National Diet Library pid 12047080, read in the full-text search's snippet · 「河田正矩」, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/河田正矩-1067950
  2. 藤井乙男『諺の研究』, 1929.
  3. 「多芸は無芸」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉・ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/多芸は無芸-559989
  4. G. L. Apperson, English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases: A Historical Dictionary, Dent, 1929, p. 330, s.v. Jack of all trades.
  5. James Curtis Hepburn, 『和英語林集成』, 1872. National Diet Library pid 993689.
  6. イーストレーキ・越山『新撰英和熟語集』, 1904. National Diet Library pid 870143.
  7. 新渡戸 監『英和俗語熟語故事大辞典』, 1911. National Diet Library pid 902975.
  8. 斎藤秀三郎『熟語本位英和中辞典』, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, 正則英語学校出版部, Tokyo, 1915, p. 1424 s.v. trade and p. 656 s.v. Jack; the Harvard copy at HathiTrust, hvd.32044086539269, seq 1442 and 674. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044086539269&seq=1442 · the 1918 printing, the same entries on the same pages, National Diet Library pid 1681530, scans 720 and 336. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1681530/1/720
  9. 武信由太郎『武信和英大辞典』, Sanseidō, 1918, p. 2038. National Diet Library pid 925665, scan 1022. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925665/1/1022
  10. Shōzō Yamaguchi and Frederic de Garis, We Japanese, Fujiya Hotel, Miyanoshita, the copy the Internet Archive dates 1936 (its record: first published December 1934, third printing June 1936), in its list of proverbs (a lending copy; the line read in its full-text search, not at the page). https://archive.org/details/bwb_P8-BMA-146
  11. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1965, pp. 180–181.
  12. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Tuttle, 1987, no. 18, p. 50.
  13. Edward E. Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest Publishing, 2004, p. 138.
  14. David Galef, Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom, Tuttle, 2012, no. 18, p. 36.
  15. William Scarborough, A Collection of Chinese Proverbs, American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1875, p. 51, no. 317. https://archive.org/details/cu31924023892981/page/n98
  16. 『漢譯伊蘇普譚』, 1876. National Diet Library pid 896789, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/896789/1/19
  17. 安藤次郎『通俗一語千金集 英文插訳』, 1887, item 9. National Diet Library pid 757780, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/757780/1/17
  18. 藤井乙男『俗諺論』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 902816, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/902816/1/22 · the National Diet Library Digital full-text search, oldest first.
  19. 『俚諺辞典』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 900343, scan 323. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/900343/1/323
  20. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910. National Diet Library pid 862766, scans 316 and 455. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/316
  21. 神田雄次郎『万国共通ことわざ集』, 1916. National Diet Library pid 980943, scan 27. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/980943/1/27
  22. 『修養亀鑑』, 1926. National Diet Library pid 913432, scan 229. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/913432/1/229
  23. 金融研究会, a banking research report, 1931. National Diet Library pid 1271755.
  24. 『俚諺大辞典』, 1933. National Diet Library pid 1766149, scan 282. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1766149/1/282
  25. 『教育週報』, December 1889, National Diet Library pid 1537075, read in the full-text search's snippet · 干河岸貫一『俗諺辞林』, 1901, 八細工七貧乏. National Diet Library pid 863228, scan 29. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/863228/1/29
  26. 岡本経朝『古今俚諺類聚』, 1893, p. 72, 器用貧乏. National Diet Library pid 767886, scan 40. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/767886/1/40
  27. P. Ehmann, Die Sprichwörter und bildlichen Ausdrücke der japanischen Sprache, Supplement der Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens, Tokyo, 1897, p. 83, no. 810 (Hyaku-gei wa ichi-gei no kuwashiki ni shikazu, 百藝は一藝の精しきに如かず) and p. 152, no. 1418 (Kiyō bimbō, 器用貧乏, Geschickte Leute sind arm). https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_TbsIAQAAMAAJ/page/n110 · https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_TbsIAQAAMAAJ/page/n179
  28. Ernest Mason Satow and Ishibashi Masakata, An English-Japanese Dictionary of the Spoken Language, Trübner, 1876, p. 903, s.v. trade.
  29. 鈴木芳松『英文和訳の急所』, 1923. National Diet Library pid 943238.
  30. 『スタンダード和英大辞典』, 1946. National Diet Library pid 1126792, scan 145. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126792/1/145
  31. Rokuo Okada, Japanese Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, Japan Travel Bureau, Tokyo, 1958, p. 151.
  32. Charles Corwin, ed., A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, 1968, s.v. heta no yokozuki.
  33. Andrew N. Nelson, The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary, 2nd rev. ed., Tuttle, 1974, s.v. 器用貧乏.
  34. 岡倉由三郎 ed., Kenkyūsha's New School Dictionary, English-Japanese, Kenkyūsha, undated printing, s.v. Jack.
  35. 小稲義男 ed., Kenkyūsha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, 5th ed., Kenkyūsha, 1980, p. 952, s.v. Jack.
  36. JMdict, 「多芸は無芸」, at gokanji. https://new.gokanji.com/word/多芸は無芸

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 多芸は無芸 (tagei wa mugei)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/tagei-wa-mugei.