Blameless pastimes

[flemmings]

Y'day's kanji study led me to this fabulous derivation.

司 SHI, tsukasa(doru), ADMINISTER, OFFICIAL

Once written (picture of early form) being a mirror image of anus 后 ie an opening 口 under buttocks 尸. It is not known how this character came to mean administer, official. Some scholars feel it results from borrowing or confusion with chronicler 史, but in view of the fact that buttocks in building 官 came to mean sedentary work and hence government/ official, it is not impossible that anus/ posterior similarly came to symbolise sedentary work and hence official.

Thus: the Chinese character for bureaucrat is the picture of an asshole. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as *my* ancestral wisdom has it.

Comments

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

Ahahahahah!!! *falls off chair* Oh my!!! is this Henshall as well still?

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

it is not impossible that anus/ posterior similarly came to symbolise sedentary work and hence official. - *still laughing*

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Is him. I read his entries in tandem with the upper jouyou kanji just to see where they came from, and invariably they elad me back to source kanji.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

*applause*

(not at the linked article which sounds frighteningly plausible here as well, except that the media would never get to it, at the etymology)

尸 = corpse in Chinese >_<

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

That character actually is the corpse one. The buttocks element has a shorter 'flag' part and comes from an earlier element that looks like an F. I went for something that looks close. I assume the element got confused in Japanese as well, so that corpse and buttocks were used interchangeably, because that's what I see a lot of.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

HAHAA I'm dying here.
Thoughts of this will keep a smile on my face all day. =D
Thank you!

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

8DDD Even if it is not true it is well thought of!

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

It is not known how this character came to mean administer, official.

This line was apparently written by someone who's never had to deal with administrators or officials.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The very thought that went through my head...

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

I'm awfully good at stating the obvious.

[incandescens]

My mind is broadened!

(If not my bureaucrat.)

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Okay, when you're here we're going to go look up this character in my supposedly most comprehensive Chinese character dictionary ever and see what it has to say. Probably not as amusing, but you never know