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In this scene a young girl, Yotsuba, drops in on her neighbors for some breakfast. The mother who's cooking breakfast says:

「今お父さんの焼いてるからその次ねー。ちょっと待っててー。」

So I guess she's preparing her husbands food first, and tells Yotsuba to hang on for a minute.

But why didn't she just say ちょっと待って?

[Image redacted]

chocolate
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Louis Waweru
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  • I started to be worried about copyright issues. Can you check if posting a comic like this is allowed or not? – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 10 '11 at 15:46
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    @TsuyoshiIto This would fall under fair use under the US copyright law I believe – Ken Li Jun 10 '11 at 15:55
  • As a US citizen, I will assume fair use. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html – Louis Waweru Jun 10 '11 at 15:57
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    @Ken, @Louis: Maybe you are right. But (1) I know almost nothing about the US copyright law and I cannot tell if it is fair use or not, and (2) although I know that Stack Overflow Internet Services, Inc. is a company based in the US, I do not know if it is sufficient to follow the US laws. Many users are from Japan, for example. – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 10 '11 at 16:00
  • I think Wikipedia gives a bettter definition of what fair use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use) is, nevertheless, this issue should be discussed on meta. – Ken Li Jun 10 '11 at 16:06
  • @Tsuyoshi, I didn't really consider Stack Overflow Internet Services, the image is hosted by imgur.com. Perhaps I should have though. I will ask about it on the SE meta. I should add that I don't think being for profit or non-profit is the deciding factor in fair use law. – Louis Waweru Jun 10 '11 at 16:17
  • @Louis: According to the pages you and Ken cited, profit or non-profit is among the many deciding factors, but I do not know if it is the deciding factor in this particular case. – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 10 '11 at 16:23
  • I would like to say that I think this shouldn't be a big issue. It isn't like we publishing the entire comic. It is a small snippet for educational and demonstrative purposes. Don't freak out, it's okay. The record/movie industries have trained us to think that any little copy is bad. It's not. – Jeshizaemon Jun 10 '11 at 16:43
  • @Tsuyoshi, it's just that I've seen so many examples of fair use by for profit businesses/individuals (a TV network showing another networks video clip, for example). I think the law is referring to using the copyrighted work with the intention of profiting from the work itself. – Louis Waweru Jun 10 '11 at 16:55
  • If this were a Wikipedia article, this use would not be allowed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fair_use#Policy I do not think that the Stack Exchange network has a similar policy, but the rationale written there sounds quite reasonable. – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 10 '11 at 17:53
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    I think it satisfies the en.wikipedia.org policy. Which part of the policy are you referring to? Comic panels are pretty common on en.wikipedia, Yotsuba's wiki has a panel as well. – Louis Waweru Jun 10 '11 at 18:05
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    Oh, and thank you for asking on Meta Stack Overflow: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/94645/clarifying-fair-use-regarding-a-stack-exchange-site-and-an-imgur-hosted-image – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 10 '11 at 18:05
  • I thought that it violates the minimal extent of use (policy 3b) and the specification of source (item 2 of the image use policy). – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 10 '11 at 18:09
  • I only used a portion of the work, so I guess you feel the resolution is too high? Wikipedia's concern with resolution is that high resolution images could "undermine the ability of the copyright holder to profit from the work." But I don't think that is a possibility with my photo. About the source, it is in the alt attribute. Maybe that's not the best place to put it. – Louis Waweru Jun 10 '11 at 18:24
  • (1) I was not talking about the resolution. You give the necessary context in the question text accurately, and the picture does not seem to be necessary to ask this question. (2) I did not realize the image had an alt attribute! (At least it is not shown with Firefox unless you choose “View Image Info” from the context menu or change the browser setting.) – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 10 '11 at 20:07
  • Because I don't fully understand my agreement with SE, I have removed the image. – Louis Waweru Jun 10 '11 at 21:02
  • @Tsuyoshi, @Louis, @Ken: I went ahead and opened a meta discussion: http://meta.japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/190/what-should-be-our-policy-about-copyrighted-images. I'd be glad if you could weigh in. – Boaz Yaniv Jun 10 '11 at 21:19
  • I changed my opinion and now I agree with what you wrote in this post. Sorry for causing a lot of noise in the comments to your question. – Tsuyoshi Ito Jun 10 '11 at 22:54
  • ちょっと待っててー is an extremely common phrase. I'v heard it from women and girls many times. Does it have feminine nuance to it? I only remember hearing it from women. – yadokari Sep 19 '11 at 22:04
  • @TsuyoshiIto Thank you for bringing this up. I'm hearing so much about this general topic with Section 230-d entering the public debate arena. What I learned from everything over ten years ago has been a good pilot light for me even today–I basically agree with the answer on meta, which may be the unpopular opinion. So thank you, it is a great example of a bold edit. – Louis Waweru May 14 '22 at 08:29

4 Answers4

16

Like Mark says, it's short for 待っていて, which is the て-form of 待っている. I think it's a little softer than saying ちょっと待って, and since Yotsuba is not one of the family, the mother is being a little more polite. Saying ちょっと待って can sound a little short. The meaning changes with the extra て, but I can't describe how it changes well. Something like "please be there waiting".

nevan king
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    btw is it true that 待て is also acceptable compared to 待って ? – Pacerier Jun 17 '11 at 10:58
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    Nope, not in this situation. 待て is the imperative (like 食べろ or 飲め), it's a command to wait. It's too direct/impolite to use as a replacement for 待って unless you're commanding the other person to wait. – nevan king Jun 17 '11 at 12:56
  • ok cool, initially i'd always thought 待て　is way more common than 待って – Pacerier Jun 17 '11 at 14:35
6

Other than soft / politeness on using 待って(い)て、 I think it has some sense that you don't have to stop what you are doing now to wait, and you may do something else while waiting.

YOU
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    Do you have anything to back up this "I think"? I've never heard this interpretation before. – Derek Schaab Jun 10 '11 at 17:36
  • @Derek, Nope, I don't have it, that's just how I feel it. And I have no idea why mine is accepted. – YOU Jun 10 '11 at 17:37
  • You've got an interesting idea there. I can't say I've got anything better, except that to me it "feels" like using ～ている puts more emphasis on waiting for a length of time. 聴いていてね ("listen [for more than just a little while]") versus 聴いてね ("listen [even if it's just for a bit]"). – Derek Schaab Jun 10 '11 at 17:43
  • Oh...I first chose nevan's answer, but I thought you were explaining that last bit that he couldn't put into words. – Louis Waweru Jun 10 '11 at 17:44
5

I think it's short for 待っていて. Though I'm just taking a guess in the dark here.

chocolate
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Mark Hosang
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1

could it possibly mean "you only have to wait a little while." because of the ite being there.. chotto modifies matte which equals wait a little (while) and ite means to be/exist/stay so therefore, 'a little bit wait is' could be a rougher interpretation.

Abby
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