60441
Until a few months ago, I am absolutely sure in every single train station I
had ever been the announcement was something along the lines of
"黄色い線の内側でお待ちください".

Then, out of the blue, one day the word 線 became ブロック. If I'm not wrong, I
would say that I noticed this mostly at Tokyo Metro stations, while JR seems
(thank god) to still be using 線. This is just based on personal experience and
I might be wrong.

My question is, why this sudden change? When exactly did it happen? Is there a
particular reason why what has always been a "line" needs to become a "block"?
More generally, is the choice of a loan word a coincidence? A very wild guess
could be that with the approach of Tokyo Olympics loanwords will increase even
more and hence that choice.

Anyway, this has been bugging me for a while and I'm just curious to know if
there is any specific reason for this change.

PS. My experience so far is only in Tokyo.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-27T02:11:29.567
60440
2018-07-27T13:10:51.767
2018-07-27T07:20:49.247
14205
question
word-choice words loanwords
Why did the 黄色い線 become the 黄色いブロック?
I doubt it's related to Olympics or internationalization; changing one word to
an (English-origin) loanword will not help foreign tourists at all. Some
native speakers [seem to have noticed the same
trend](https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q14185519934),
but I could not find the authoritative reason.

One reason I can think of is that this yellow paving is currently becoming
wider to the point where it's hardly called a "line". Until recently, this
yellow 点字ブロック was made only of dotted blocks. But a recent government
guideline says the dots should be accompanied by "bars" to indicate which side
of the paving is safer to visually impaired people.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/K7xlt.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/K7xlt.png)  
(image from 京阪電気鉄道's press release)

Now this looks almost like a yellow _area_ rather than a yellow _line_. These
bars are called 点字ブロック内方線, and an increasing number of stations are installing
new 内方線. So this may be why they started to call them simply as ブロック instead
of 線. (Still, this is my guess.) Tactile paving has been called (点字)ブロック ever
since it was introduced, so I don't think it has something to do with "recent
overuse of loanwords".

**EDIT:** [This chiebukuro
question](https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q14186139619)
shows another reason why ブロック is better. 黄色い線 is confusing to visually
impaired people because a 線 can possibly refer to something they cannot
perceive. By clearly saying 黄色いブロック, they can be sure that it refers to the
thing they are absolutely familiar with.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-27T04:30:54.033
60441
2018-07-27T13:10:51.767
2018-07-27T13:10:51.767
5010
5010
60440
answer