480531170

519
L3
散
SAN, chiru/rasu
scatter
12 strokes
SANPOstroll
SANBUNprose
chirashileaflet
OBI ; bronze ; seal . Analyses differ.
OBI form has 73 ‘tree’; bronze and seal forms
have 209 ‘meat’ added. Further variation is
that bronze occurrences typically have 58
‘bamboo’ instead of . Yamada considers
in bronze is probably the result of miscopying
, while Katō regards as correct and in
the seal form onwards to be in error. Despite
this difference of opinion, both scholars take
to comprise ‘meat’, with (‘separate’)
as semantic and phonetic, meaning ‘beat and
separate’; Yamada then takes it as ‘meat divided
up’ (as does Tōdō), with a subsequent generalization
of meaning, to give ‘divide up, break up’.
MS1995:v2:1076-8; YK1976:208-9; KJ1970:442;
TA1965:567. Suggest take as 112 ‘beat’, 209
‘meat’ and twenty-one (35 ‘ten’, x 2 and 1
‘one’).
Mnemonic: BEAT MEAT AND SCATTER INTO
TWENTY-ONE BITS
520
L3
残
ZAN, nokoru/su
leave, cruel
10 strokes
ZANKINbalance (money)
ZANNENregret
ZANNINbrutality
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 302 ‘bare
bones; bone fragments’, and (‘crossed halberds;
injure’, see e.g. 545) as semantic and phonetic,
meaning ‘cut and wound’, to give ‘kill by
cutting’. ‘Remain’ is a loan usage. KJ1970:625-6;
YK1976:210; OT1968:543.
Mnemonic: TWO CRUEL HALBERDS LEAVE
ONLY BARE BONES
521
L1
士
SHI, samurai
warrior, scholar, male
3 strokes
BUSHIsamurai, warrior
SHIKANmilitary officer
SHŪSHIMaster (degree)
OBI ; bronze . The simple appearance
of this graph makes it difficult to explain. It
is widely interpreted as depicting the erect
male organ. This view is a fair interpretation
on the basis of most of the OBI occurrences.
In that case there is, however, the awkward
question of how to regard the upper horizontal
stroke which features consistently
from the bronze form onwards. It might be
argued that it represents the glans, but this
too is graphically unconvincing. Katō takes
the cross-stroke as simply an embellishment,
but does not elaborate on this. Thus this does
not seem particularly convincing either. Nor
does his view that it applies particularly to
an unmarried male, again without elaboration.
Tōdō treats ‘man, male’ as an extended
sense, and notes the association in classical
texts with the image of a man who is
magnanimous and strong-willed; he takes
‘serve’ as a sense deriving from the use of
as sometimes standing for 301 (‘serve’).
Schuessler notes the meaning ‘retainer’ for
already from Western Zhou period (11 th
century – 771 BC) on, and ‘scholar’ as a later
sense. Shirakawa, on the basis of bronze
forms, regards the graph as depicting a battle-ax
as a ritual object – the thicker bottom
stroke in the forms he gives represents the
ax blade; this, however, does not explain the
simpler OBI shape. KJ1970:451-2; YK1976:211;
TA1965:106; AS2007:465; SS1984:358;
KJ1985:139-40.
Mnemonic: SAMURAI STANDS ERECT WITH A
STRANGE CROSS
176 The 200 Fourth Grade Characters