 The concatenation of the two words ""on"" and ""ji"" into ""onji"" (音字) was used by Meiji era grammarians to mean "phonic character" and was translated into English by Nishi Amane in 1870 as "letter".Since then, the term "onji" has become obsolete in Japan, and only survives in foreign-language discussion of Japanese poetry.Gilbert and Yoneoka  call the use of the word ""onji"" "bizarre and mistaken".