Must be some mistake?

[li3wei1]

畜牲 vs. 畜生

These are both coming up in dictionaries as having the same meaning (domestic animals), and very nearly the same pronunciation (牲 is first tone, 生 is neutral). Would I be right in assuming that this is the result of a mistake, of people writing the second to mean the first so often that it becomes accepted? Like irregardless for regardless, and flammable for inflammable? Or is there some subtle difference in meaning or usage, or different etymologies?

If you find other examples similar to this, please post them here. I suspect there are many.

[WestTexas]

There are plenty of words like this in Chinese, for example 磨练/磨炼 is a pair I learned recently.

Irregardless is definitely wrong in formal usage.

[anonymoose]

Well, according to nciku.com, 畜牲 is an obsolete variant of 畜生. But then, nciku also contains lots of mistakes.

[陳德聰]

Irregardless is definitely wrong in formal usage.

See

I always thought the same as the first paragraph of this: http://baike.baidu.com/view/66333.htm

Although I was never specifically told this... It just seems right?

[li3wei1]

So baidu and nciku disagree over which one is proper and which is alternative? I would have gone with the baidu version, personally.

[edelweis]

Attaching

1) list of words 2 characters and longer from cedict, which definition contains "variant of" and the same pinyin as the defined word, excluding "Japanese" and "erhua". Total: 329 (and my cedict file is a little old, newer ones will probably have more.)

2) same, but the definition does not contain the pinyin of the other variant. You'll have to sort that yourself to eliminate variants with different pinyins. Total: 151

variants.txt

variants_nopy.txt

[li3wei1]

How's this? Is there a difference between 充分 and 充份?

[skylee]

I think 充分 is correct. 充份 does not exist in the Taiwan MOE Dictionary or the Xiandai Hanyu Cidian.

But nowadays 充份 is considered acceptable (same meaning as 充分) by some people/dictionaries, such as -

http://www.edbchinese.hk/lexlist_en/result.jsp?id=0264&sortBy=stroke&jpC=lshk

http://www.zdic.net/cd/ci/6/ZdicE5Zdic85Zdic8595482.htm

[HusbandOfWuhan]

It think it should be 充分 and not 充份 because my Chinese typing system doesn't even recognize it when I type in chongfen.

牲畜 - cattle; livestock; beast of burden.

畜牲 - animal like cow, horse, chicken, dog, lamb and pig etc. also used as a derogatory term to scold people "You animal! 你畜牲“

畜生 - domestic animal - but both are used in a similar way or exactly the same way. However, according to Baidu.com, the formal way of writing this is 畜牲

[BertR]

《现代汉语规范词典》 has this note under 牲畜

现在一般写作"畜生"

《现代汉语词典》 doesn't have 牲畜 as a separate entry, but under 畜生 it adds 也作牲畜

So 畜生 is definitely the preferred writing form.

[ldgend]

just like that, a plenty of words have a pair. a huge number of Chinese don't know which is correct. So dictionary let both are OK...