煙が出とる? What's 出とる？

[Kurokome]

Hello, I was reading a manga and I saw this sentence 煙が出とる.

I understood that it says "smoke is coming out" but I don't understand the grammar structure.
Isn't it usually 煙を出す? Why is it 煙が出とる? Is 出とる a compound word or a contraction?

Thank you in advance!

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

煙を出す means 'put smoke out', which is okay for some situations, but 煙が出る means 'smoke comes out', which is better for a lot of situations with smoke (like chimneys, which can't really be said to be 'putting' the smoke out... well, not literally, but you can say it anyway to create a certain imagery, in English or in Japanese.)

So 煙突から煙が出る means 'smoke comes out of chimneys', which is great if you're writing an encyclopedia entry about fireplaces. In descriptive writing though, you want to say 'smoke is coming from the chimney' which is 煙突から煙が出ている.

This can be contracted to 煙突から煙が出てる。

However, some dialects prefer おる in place of いる, and if you contract でておる you get でとる instead of でてる。

 

[Glenn]

@SomeCallMeChris , in a similar vein to what I said to Toritoribe in another thread, you're pretty awesome. I find most of your replies to be well though-out and insightful, and I enjoy reading them. This one is certainly no exception. In this case, you managed to lay out pretty much everything I thought when I read the title, and even went a bit further and made your response both educational and entertaining, with a touch that I would not have come up with (the Wikipedia comment is brilliant). Kudos to you, sir. I'm glad you're a member of this forum.

 

[Toritoribe]

I totally agree with you, Glenn-san! (And that's why I clicked the "like" button on Chris-san's post.)

 

[SomeCallMeChris]

Oh, well, thank you very much for your kind words, but really I feel that I learn a lot from this forum and am indebted to many here and especially both of you for that. I just try to put a helpful word in when I can.