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I have been recently trying to read novels in Japanese but there are some
compound phrases which I have found hard to grasp.

> 今のご時世、高校生の連絡先の最低ラインってガラケーじゃないんですか？
>
> それすらもレアメタルがどうたらで回収される世の中ではないのですか？

  1. Researching the kana for the second sentence I found レアメタル to be "rare metal" which doesn't make sense in its context.
  2. What does the grammatical structure beginning with どうたらで stand for?
  3. What is the meaning of the phrase?
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2016-06-29T03:48:45.600
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2021-09-02T20:16:22.470
2021-09-02T20:16:22.470
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question
grammar katakana
Trouble understanding 「それすらもレアメタルがどうたらで回収される世の中ではないのですか」
レアメタル is indeed "rare metal" (or rare earth), and どうたら/どうたらこうたら is like "blah-
blah", "such-and-such", "you-know-what". It's used in place of an obvious
and/or unimportant part. The following questions are related.

  * [What does うんたらかんたら mean?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/9414/5010)
  * [The phrase うんやらかんやら?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/27445/5010)

So "レアメタルがどうたら" means "rare metals are blah blah blah" And in case you didn't
know, [phones contain a lot of rare metals](http://gizmodo.com/the-metals-in-
your-phone-arent-just-rare-theyre-irre-1477904295).

This で is a particle [with various
meanings](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/jn/148951/meaning/m0u/%E3%81%A7/), but
in this case it denotes a reason/cause or background situation.

> それすらもレアメタルがどうたらで回収される世の中ではないのですか?  
>  Aren't we in the times where even they (ガラケー?) are collected (or taken
> over) saying "rare metals are blah blah blah"?
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2016-06-29T04:03:25.730
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2016-06-29T06:32:10.290
2017-04-13T12:43:44.260
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answer