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素人 means beginner. ド素人 means total beginner.

`ド` means "very", "total". Any idea where does this word come from
etymologically? It is sometimes also written in hiragana.

Are there other current expressions that use `ド` in a similar way?
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2012-01-25T02:04:42.233
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etymology
Where does the ド in ド素人 come from?
どぎつい, ど真ん中 and ド変態{へんたい} come to mind as similar expressions.

I don't know where this use of ド came from. Maybe from the phrase 度{ど}が過ぎる.
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2012-01-25T02:19:50.437
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ど突く, ドスケベ, どあほ, ドM, ドS, どえらい, どぶす, ど近眼... sure there are many more

Please note that some of these are quite rude and offensive. Please use with
caution.

Not sure about the etymology, but I have the impression that they tend to be
used more in Kansai-ben.
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2012-01-25T04:14:37.293
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This is not "etymology" per se, but the Tokyo dialect has borrowed "ど" from
Kansai-ben. I don't have a solid reference to back up this claim, but I
remember reading that in books written by scholars. Also there is a Wikipedia
entry about Kansai-ben (cited below) and its vocabulary section includes this
very "ど".

"ど" is still informal in the Tokyo dialect and tends to be avoided in formal
speech and writing in my experience (living in the Tokyo area for a long
time). Some traditionalists disdain it as vulgar because there are good
traditional alternatives. For example, Tokyoites used to say まん真ん中 instead of
ど真ん中 (dead center, right in the middle, etc.) but the latter is becoming more
and more common now. To Tokyoites' ear today, まん真ん中 sounds perfectly fine and
a bit more elegant than ど真ん中, but it lacks the forcefulness and vividness of
the latter. You can say the same for other words qualified by "ど".

[近畿方言 from
Wikipedia](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%BF%91%E7%95%BF%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80)
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2016-08-05T04:57:49.863
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