Anyone know the son of Idesia Polycarpa Maxim?

Anyone know the son of Idesia Polycarpa Maxim? He has a straight back, sturdy legs, and is willing to support almost anyone. People affectionately refer to him as the "son of 의(椅)." If anyone sees him, do not hesitate to approach, take a seat, and relax.

Do we really need 長(장) as a radical?

長(장) is a Chinese character that means "long." It is also one of the 214 radicals in a Chinese dictionary (옥편). Radicals are the character headings that are used to sort the thousands of characters in a Chinese dictionary. Characters under a radical heading use that radical character as part of its composite structure, similar to how words that begin with an "a" would be found under the letter "A" in an English dictionary. A radical character also can be used as part of another character without being the radical for that character, similar to how "a" can be used in words that are not listed under the letter "A" in an English dictionary (e.g. "cat"). The interesting thing about the radical 長(장) is that there are no Chinese characters listed under it, at least not in my Chinese dictionary.

Why are there no characters under the radical 長(장)? Why make it a radical if it does not organize anything, except itself? Why not just put it under another radical, such as 衣(의)? Can't it be made to fit? Were there once characters under 長(장) that just disappeared over time? Also, 長(장) seems like a very nice character, so why does it appear in few other characters? I can find only four functional characters that make use of 長(장), and none of them use it as their radical. Here they are:

帳(장) curtain; screen
張(장) stretch; display; sheet
脹(창) to have a full stomach; to be swollen
漲(창) to fill up

How much is one 경(京)?

One 경(京) is "10 quadrillion," which is a 1 followed by 16 zeros (i.e. 10,000,000,000,000,000).

According to this article in the Joongang Daily, the Bank of Korea has reported that "the sum of all transactions through domestic financial service companies reached '2.7 gyeong won' or 27 quadrillion won ($26 trillion) last year. (I wish I had a 경 or two in Korean won.)

Notice that the Chinese character for 경(京) is the same character that is used to mean "capital."

What comes after 경(京)? Well, here is a list I typed up a couple of weeks ago:

一(일) = one
十(십) = ten
百(백) = hundred
千(천) = thousand
萬(만) = ten thousand
十萬(십만) = hundred thousand
百萬(백만) = million
千萬(천만) = ten million
億(억) = hundred million
十億(십억) = billion
百億(백억) = ten billion
千億(천억) = hundred billion
兆(조) = trillion
十兆(십조) = ten trillion
百兆(백조) = hundred trillion
千兆(천조) = quadrillion
京(경) = ten quadrillion
十京(십경) = hundred quadrillion
百京(백경) = quintillion
千京(천경) = ten quintillion
垓(해) = hundred quintillion
十垓(십해) = sextillion
百垓(백해) = ten sextillion
千垓(천해) = hundred sextillion
--(자) = septillion
十-(십자) = ten septillion
百-(백자) = hundred septillion
千-(천자) = octillion
穰(양) = ten octillion
十穰(십양) = hundred octillion
百穰(백양) = nonillion
千穰(천양) = ten nonillion
溝(구) = hundred nonillion
十溝(십구) = decillion
百溝(백구) = ten decillion
千溝(천구) = hundred decillion
澗(간) = undecillion
十澗(십간) = ten undecillion
百澗(백간) = hundred undecillion
천澗(천간) = duodecillion
正(정) = ten duodecillion
十正(십정) = hundred duodecilion
百正(백정) = tredecillion
千正(천정) = ten tredecillion
載(재) = hundred tredecilion
十載(십재) = quattuordecillion
百載(백재) = ten quattuordecillion
千載(천재) = hundred quattuordecillion
極(극) = quindecillion
十極(십극) = ten quindecillion
百極(백극) = hundred quindecillion
千極(천극) = sexdecillion

What does 간만(干滿) really mean?

간만(干滿) means the "ebb and flow" of the tide. 간조(干潮) is "low tide," and 만조(滿潮) is "high tide." 간(干) and 만(滿) are supposed to be opposites, but they did not seem like opposites to me, so I looked up their definitions.

간(干) means "shield," but it also has a few other meanings, including "attack," "pursue," "participate," and "dry." Among these meanings, "dry" seems to be the only one that comes closest to being the opposite of 만(滿), which means "full" or "abundant." "Dry" and "full" do not really seem like good opposites to me, but if you are talking about water, which is implied by the "water" radical, 氵(수), in 만(滿), then maybe they could be considered opposites. Nevertheless, I still do not like it.

So, a literal translation of 간조(干潮) and 만조(滿潮) would be "dry tide" and "full tide," respectively.

By the way, if you add "water" to "dry," what do you get? Well, the Chinese think you get "sweat," 汗(한). The logic? You charge in and penetrate the skin with your "shield" (干) and "water"(氵) comes out. Inscrutable? Yes, I think so, too.

What exactly was "adultery" in old China?

Considering that 男(남) means "man" and 女(여) means "woman," which of the following Chinese characters would you choose to mean "rape" or "adultery"?

1. 嬲(뇨)
   -
2. 姦(간)

Me, too, but, surprisingly the Chinese chose Number 2. The first character means "flirting with or teasing a woman."

肛(항)? Where is the hole in "asshole"?

肛(항) is the Chinese character for "anus," as in 肛門(항문). The character is composed of 月(육), which means "meat," and 工(공), which means "artisan" or "craftsman." This combination struck me as strange, so I decided to do a little research.

I knew that 月(육) is often used in characters that refer to parts of the body, but I could not see the relationship between a "craftsman" and an "anus." Yes, I once knew a carpenter who was an "asshole," but I do not think the Chinese would generalize like that.

The Chinese character 孔(공) means "hole," so why was it not used instead of 工(공)? I felt that even 空(공), which means "empty," would have been more appropriate since one of its other meanings is also "hole." Anyway, I looked up the character 工(공) and was surprised to learn that it used to refer to a tool that bore "holes" in stoneware. Moreover, the explanation I read said that since 工(공) sounds the same as 孔(공) and 空(공), it came to also mean "hole." Well, that explains it.

This character will be easy for me to remember because all I have to do is associate it with that carpenter I used to know.

How long have the Chinese played baseball?

The Chinese character 壘(루) means "fort" or "camp." Notice that it is composed of three fields arranged on top of a mound of "earth." The Chinese character for "field" is 田(전), and the character for "earth" or "land" is 土(토).

Now look carefully at the character:

壘

Doesn't it look a lot like a baseball diamond? The field on top would be second base; the one to the right, first base; the one to the left, third base; and the mound of "earth" at the bottom would be home plate.

Koreans refer to "first base" as 일루(一壘), "second base" as 이루(二壘), "third base" as 삼루(三壘), and "home plate" as 본루(本壘).

Is this just coincidence? Or were the Chinese playing baseball a thousand years before Columbus discovered America? I wonder.

What are the scariest Chinese characters?

One scary Chinese character is 妬(투), which means "intense jealousy." It is composed of the characters 女(여), which means "woman," and 石(석), which means "rock." When I first saw this character, I wondered why the Chinese would use a woman with a rock to represent "intense jealousy," then it hit me. When I think of what a jealous Chinese woman might do with a rock, I cringe.

These days, 妬(투) seems somewhat anachronistic. If the Chinese were to update the character, I think they might replace 石(석) with 刀(도), which, of course, means "knife."

Are Koreans also confused by 호박?

Last night I stopped by the local Paris Baguette to pick up my usual loaf of barley bread (보리빵), but they had run out. The manager suggested I try the 호박검은깨 bread, instead. According to the label on the package, the bread's ingredients included 2 percent pumpkin powder (호박분말) and 2 percent black sesame (흑깨). I bought the bread.

Today, while preparing to make a sandwich with my black sesame pumpkin bread, I noticed on the package the Chinese character 珀(박), which I previously talked about here. As some may remember, 珀(박) means 호박, but it is the "amber" 호박, not the "pumpkin" 호박. Therefore, the "珀"on my bread package seems to imply that the bread is made from "amber powder," not "pumpkin powder," which hopefully is not the case. It seems much more likely that the people at Paris Baguette are also confused by the Chinese character, 珀(박).

What does the 찌 in 물찌똥 mean?

물찌똥 has two meanings. One is "loose stool," and the other is "splashing waterdrops." If you were to drop the 찌 in 물찌똥, you would get 물똥, which still means "splashing water," but no longer means "loose stool." That seems to imply that 찌 has a kind of "shitty" meaning in it, but I cannot find anything in the dictionary.

There is the word 꼴찌, which means "the last" or "the bottom," but I do not see any relationship with the 찌 in 물찌똥, unless you want to focus on the word, "bottom." There is also the word 찌개, which means "pot stew," but I cringe at the thought that that might somehow be related. Then there is the word 찌꺼기, which is kind of interesting since it means "dregs," "remains," "leftovers," or "waste," but even with 찌꺼기, I think I am still grasping for straws. Therefore, I guess I just have to give up on my search for the meaning of 찌.

Just remember that if you want to talk about "a water fight," you should use 물똥싸움, not 물찌똥싸움. However, I do think I remember seeing a 물찌똥싸움 is the movie, "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle."

伍(오)? Why five people?

The Chinese character, 伍(오), means "five people." It is composed of 亻(인) and 五(오). 亻(인) means "person," and 五(오) means "five," so this character is easy to remember. However, why did the Chinese create a special character to mean "five people," as opposed to some other number of people? I was curious, so I looked it up.

The smallest unit in the armies of Old China was five men, and it seems that when the Chinese would march, they would usually march in ranks of five, which was called an 伍(오). Five ranks would be twenty-five men, which the Chinese called a 行(항). The Korean word for "rank and file" is 항오(行伍).

By the way, the character 行 is pronounced as 행, not 항, when it is used to mean "to walk" or "to do."

Can one get drunk on "chicken water"?

The Chinese character for alcohol is 酒(주), which is a combination of 氵(수) and 酉(유). The character 氵(수) means "water," and the character 酉(유) means "chicken." That implies that the Chinese considered alcohol to be "chicken water," which is not something I would want to get drunk on. Anyway, I was curious as to why "chicken water" would be used to refer to alcohol, so I did a little research.

I found that 酉(유) was originally drawn to represent a wine barrel, which my imagination can see. The top part of the character, for example, looks kind of like a cork or some kind of lid. A wine barrel with liquid in it for "alcohol"? I can accept that. However, that now brings up another question.

How does one get "chicken" from a "wine barrel"?

Why 膾(회) and not 鱠(회)?

The Chinese character for "sliced raw meat" is 膾(회), which is made up of the characters 月(육) and 會(회). 月(육) means "meat," and 會(회) means "meeting." The Chinese character for "meat" is 肉(육), but it is usually written as 月 when combined with other characters. Notice that the "meat," 月(육), and the "moon," 月(월), look the same, which can be confusing. However, when you see the 月 character, you can usually assume it means "meat," since the "meat" 月 is combined with other Chinese characters about 9 times more often than the "moon" 月. At any rate, the character for "sliced raw meat" is "a meeting of meat," not "a meeting under the moon."

膾(회) refers to both "sliced raw beef" and "sliced raw fish." If you want to distinguish between the two, you must say 肉膾(육회) for "sliced raw beef" and 生鮮膾(생선회) for "sliced raw fish."

My question is why isn't 鱠(회) used for "sliced raw fish" instead of 膾(회)? 鱠(회) is made up of the character 魚(어), which means fish. Wouldn't that make it a more appropriate composite character for "sliced raw fish"?

When one wants to refer to "sliced raw meat and fish" in general way, than 膾 is fine, but when one wants to distinguish between the two, then one should distinguish between the characters. Use 膾 in 肉膾(육회), but 鱠 should be used in 生鮮膾(생선회), not 膾.

Why does 珀(박) mean "호박"?

These days I have been studying Chinese characters, and today I came across the character 珀(박), which means "호박." The character is a combination of 白(백) and 玉(옥). 白 means "white" and 玉 means "gem" or "precious stone." The combination implies "white gem." That confused me because I assumed "호박" meant "pumpkin," which is not "white" and certainly not a "gem." Therefore, I went to the dictionary to see if I could find an explanation.

I found that there are two meanings for 호박-- one is "pumpkin," and the other is "amber." It turns out that the "pumpkin" 호박 is a pure Korean word, which means it is not made from Chinese characters, but the "amber" 호박(琥珀) is a Sino-Korean word, which means it is made from Chinese characters. When Koreans say, 호박색," they are referring to the color of "amber," not to the color of a "pumpkin."

So today I learned that the Korean word for "amber" is 호박, but there is still something I do not understand. Amber is a brownish yellow color, but the character, 珀, implies that it is "white." What gives?

How does "snot" come from 泗(사)?

The Chinese character 泗 has two meanings. One is a "name used for water," and the other is "snot." The character is a combination of "water," 氵(수) and the number "four," 四(사). Though I could understand why the character for water would be used in a character for "snot," I could not understand why "four" would be used, so I decided to research it. Here is what I found out.

Up until sometime about the "Warring States" period, the Chinese character for "four" was four stacked horizontal lines, but because it was often confused with the character for "three," 三(삼), the Chinese started using 四(사) to represent "four." Originally, 四 represented "breath coming out of a nose," but over time that meaning disappeared leaving only the meaning for "four." Therefore, if we think of 四 as a nose and combine it with water, 氵, we get "snot," 泗.

The story of the lying sheep

There is a Chinese character that is written as 詳(상), which means "detailed." The character is a combination of two other characters, 言(언), which means "talk," and 羊(양), which means "sheep." The combination of the characters seems to be referring to "a talking sheep," but what does a talking sheep have to do with the meaning "detailed"? I have no idea, but after a little research, I have found another meaning for 詳 that makes a little more sense to me.

The character 詳 actually has two pronunciations, 상 and 양. The 상 pronunciation carries the meaning "detailed," as I meantioned above, but the 양 pronunciation carries the meaning "lie," as in 거짓말. Though I cannot think of any example where the 양 pronunciation is used, I remember hearing a story a long time ago that may explain why the 詳 character also has the meaning of "lie." However, the story I heard did not take place in China, but somewhere in the United States during the Old West, when indians still roamed the plains.

Here is the story:

A cowboy rides into an indian village after crossing the desert. He and his horse are thirsty. The cowboy rides up to a teepee, where an old indian is sitting out in front with a horse, a dog, and a sheep. The cowboy stops and asks the old indian if he can get a drink of water at his well. The old indian nods his head, "yes."

While the cowboy is drinking, he looks over at the dog lying behind the old indian and asks the indian, "Do you mind if I talk to your dog?"

The old indian replies, "Dog no talk."

Ignoring the indian, the cowboy looks at the dog and asks, "How are ya?"

The dog answers, "Fine."

The indian is shocked because he had never heard his dog talk before.

The cowboy then asks the dog, "How does your master treat you?"

The dog replies, "He is good to me. He feeds me everyday, and lets me sleep in the teepee when it rains. He even takes me down to the river to play sometimes."

The old indian is amazed. He can hardly believe that he had been living with a talking dog all these years.

Then the cowboy looks at the old indian and asks, "Do you mind if I talk to your horse?"

The old indian replies, "Horse no talk."

The cowboy looks at the horse and says, "Howdy?" The horse also replies with "howdy."

Again, the old indian is amazed to hear his horse talk.

The cowboy asks the horse, "How does your master treat you?"

The horse replies, "He is very good to me. He only rides me two or three times a week, and he always wipes me down afterwards. Every morning he takes me to a nearby field where the grass is especially tasty. Yes, he is very good to me."

The old indian is flabbergasted because he never knew that he had a talking horse.

Then the cowboy looks at the old indian and asks, "Mind if I talk to your sheep?"

The old indian sits up straight, folds his arms across his chest, and says in a very clear, stern voice, "Sheep lie."

How about using 姓 to replace 産?

If you have ever wondered why the Chinese are known for being inscrutable, then pay attention because I am about to give you an example.

The Chinese character for "birth" is 産(산). It is a composite of two characters, 生(생) and the abbreviated version of 彦(언). 生 means "birth" or "life," which makes it a logical choice for one of the composite elements, but why in the heck did the Chinese decide to use 彦 for the other composite element?

彦(언) means "a (classical) scholar" or "a learned man." Putting 生 beneath 彦 would seem to imply that a learned man is capable of giving birth. However, no matter how learned a man may be, he cannot give birth, not even a man without whiskers, 彡(삼). Therefore, I think we need to consider replacing this absurd, unnatural character with one that makes more sense. Here is my suggestion.

姓(성) would be the perfect replacement for 産 since it is composed of 女(여), which means "woman," and 生(생), which means "life" or "birth." The combination would imply that a "woman gives birth," which is absolutely true. I cannot think of a better replacement for 産.

Not only is 姓 the logically choice to carry the meaning, "give birth," it would give us an opportunity to find a more logical choice to carry the current meaning of 姓, which is "family name." Afterall, what relationship does "woman" and "life" have with "family name"? When a woman gives birth, doesn't the child usually get the father's family name, not the mother's?

What does the "주" in 재주 mean?

I know that 재주 means, "talent" or "ability." (Here is the Naver dictionary definition of 재주.) What I do not know is why the 주 was added to 재(才)?

재(才) and 재주 mean the same thing, so why is the 주 needed? Regardless of what the Naver dictionary may say, the 주 of 재주 has no Chinese character orgin that I know of, and I have found no pure Korean word or suffix that might explain it. It just seems to be acting as a filler.

Was 주 added to distinguish 재(才) from other 재's, such as 재(財), which means "property"? For example, without 주 we would not know if 재가 있는 사람 means "a man of talent" or "a man of property." However, when we talk about "a man of property," we normally say 재산 있는 사람, so we could say 재(才)가 있는 사람 without causing any confusion.

Maybe 재주 was originally a pure Korean word, and someone back in history just decided to spice up the word by replacing the pure Korean 재 with the Chinese character 재(才)?

I am not going to answer my question because I do not know the answer; I just wanted to pose it.

Does anyone know of any other examples of a non-Chinese-character 주 being attached to other Chinese characters?

What does 지족(知足)하다 mean?

지족(知足) means "contentment," but when I first saw the Chinese characters for this word, I could not understand how "contentment" could be achieved by "knowing one's foot" (知 means "know," and 足 means "foot"). After doing a little research, however, I found that besides meaning "foot," 足(족) can also mean "enough," "sufficient," or "plenty." Therefore, 지족(知足)하다 literally means, "know enough."

It seems that people can find contentment when they know their place in life and are satisfied with what they have.

Of course, none of this explains why the Chinese character for "foot" is also used to mean "enough"?

What does 유명하다 literally mean?

유명(有名)하다 means "famous," but the literal meaning of the word's Chinese characters is "having a name." Koreans also say a person is famous by saying 이름있다, which seems to be a pure Korean translation of 유명(有名).

At one time, did simply having a name make one famous in Korea? I do not know, but we have a similar expression in English, which is, "Make a name for one's self."