Wrong hanzi?

[dnevets]

Today an Anki flashcard came up that reminded me of something I've been meaning to ask for ages, so here goes. Sometimes I learn words that really seem (to me) to use the wrong character. Perhaps it's better if I give an example:

羊水 which means "amniotic fluid". But 'yang shui' should surely mean "goat water", which doesn't make a lot of sense. Why not use 养 which is a different yang, but makes an awful lot more sense when you think about what the word is supposed to mean?

I've come across quite a few other examples, absolutely none of which I can recall at the moment. I'll add them if/when I remember them.

So this thread is for listing words where there is a seemingly much more logical hanzi that could've been used but wasn't. Alternatively, this can be a really short thread where someone explains to me that I'm clearly wrong and I just need to learn more about hanzi. Admittedly, my knowledge of radicals, the origins of hanzi and traditional characters is pretty poor, so perhaps that's the problem.

[yonglin]

Interesting etymology from Baidu Baike.

[heifeng]

It's not the wrong Hanzi, but a Hanzi that is used in related vocabulary (not necessarily directly related to a goat...or is it?! )

Through a magic google search, I found this discussion which shows, nope you are not the first person to wonder how this word came about & also addresses that above Baidu explanation: http://www.douban.co.../topic/8572505/

But you may want to check out this link as well to see how else ‘羊’ is used in different but related words: http://zh.wikipedia....a.org/wiki/羊膜動物

Also, there are different ways to say 羊水, such as 胎水 or羊胎水 so you may want to check this out (actually 2 definitions are given for胎水 may need to look out for usage #2 http://www.baike.com...ike.com/wiki/胎水) as well as some other helpful links you may find.

[xiaocai]

My New Oxford American Dictionary says that amniotic water was derived from the word amnion which is originally from the diminutive of the Greek word amnos "lamb". So it is most likely to be a direct translation from Greek to Chinese. This is done very often in science.

[muirm]

The 规范词典 says the 羊 in 羊水 is shortened from 羊膜, meaning amnion. Furthermore, it states that a 羊's amnion is extremely marked, suggesting a possible explanation for the lamb connection. The chinese could still just be a translation from the greek, but at least this hints at why lambs are involved at all.

[hbuchtel]

Alternatively, this can be a really short thread where someone explains to me that I'm clearly wrong and I just need to learn more about hanzi.

It looks like your knowledge of hanzi is fine, but you need to learn more Greek!

All joking aside, the translation of most basic medical knowledge into Han characters was done by people who chose to translate each term according to its root (a 'calque'). In English the same medical terms are represented phonetically, which means that unless you've studied Latin or Greek the root meaning of the word is hidden. I believe this is true of most European languages, with the exception of German, where most medical terms are translated by the root, just as in Chinese.

[lingo-ling]

I'm reminded of 角色 vs 腳色, which I have heard both mean "role" but have a subtle difference I can't recall at the moment.