flemmings | (no subject)

Illness is the most tiresome thing imaginable. It rots the brain. As this morning, when I realized my glasses were cloudy and sprayed them with cleaner, both sides, and wiped them, and wondered why they were even cloudier, not to say opaque. This will happen when you spray Liquid Bandage™ on your lenses.

Been meaning to quote this one for a while:

欧: Ō: Europe, Eu--　Formerly 歐. 欠 is lack here in its literal sense of gaping mouth. 區/区 is ward/section. Though the 品 of 區 probably referred initially to various enclosures, because of the similarity to mouth 口, 區 was often chosen as a phonetic in words relating to the mouth.

Here it is used to express the sound Ō. (Though as an independent character, 區 is now invariably read KU, it is also listed as having the minor reading Ō, both readings appearing to stem from an original reading of YOKU/ EOKU/ EUKU or similar.) Thus to make the sound Ō (EO/ EU) with a gaping mouth, a reference to groaning while vomiting. (欧) can still be used to mean vomit in Chinese, while in Japanese this is expressed by the character 嘔, which uses an ordinary mouth 口 instead of a gaping mouth 欠.

The character was also chosen as the phonetic for the EU of Europe, as well as Eustachian, Euclid, etc. Why a character of such emetic connotations should be chosen to represent Europe is a matter of some conjecture. While it is true there are very few characters with a reading of this particular type of Ō (EU/EO, as opposed to OO, OU etc.) it should be noted there is a perfectly good non-general use character 謳 (言 is words) which is read Ō/EU/EO and has a meaning of praise or extol.

Ewww-rup, obviously. (And if you look in the wordtank, they give you the reading 'ha(ku)/ to vomit' right next to the ō of ōbei the West.)

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Much sympathy and I hope the illness clears soon.

Have just received your Christmas card -- many thanks. There is one in the post heading your way, but I cannot promise that it will arrive in time.

Canada Post has not the excellence of the Royal Mail. Also it closes for four days at Christmas and never delivers on Saturdays. I shall appreciate your card when and as it arrives.

I won't lie. I actually laughed out loud when I read you'd sprayed liquid bandage on your glasses. The only reason I haven't done something similar by now is because I don't wear my glasses full time :laughs:

I only wear them first thing in the morning until I'm clear-eyed and co-ordinated enough to put in my contacts.

Hope you get well soon.

re kanji my main grievance is distinguishing between the kanji for Europe and the one for Australia (they dont look anything alike, but sound almost the same). I could never manage to remember. hopefully your post will help. Three mouths for EU! Water radical and rice for Australia!

Blanked out on the kanji for Australia, researched-- which took me into a fascinating byway on when the various waves of kanji came to Japan: so 'Wu' kanji came during the Southern and Northern dynasties, 'Han' kanji came during Tang, and 'Tang' kanji came during Song-- and finally discovered that Chinese and Japanese actually use different characters. Chinese has 'rice' 米 in the box giving you 澳; Japanese has 'rice plant' 禾,　giving you 澳. Which IME doesn't have, presumably because the Japanese either use katakana or prefer the alternate ateji 濠太刺利 (shortened to 濠洲), which actually starts with the sound 'go'. As in Go figure.

i like 濠洲 better, the first kanji actually sounds more like the "Au" in Australia in pinyin. At least, its base kanji (the component on the left) hao2.

the japanese don't like the rice radical :D c.f. the ki of genki :D

I know. The ki of genki puzzled me when I finally saw the original. Maybe rice is so sacred it mustn't be used indiscriminately? And then you get that woman threshing rice in 'count' 数. Go figure again.