proper use of 子

[马杰]

Accoring to what I've been told, you can't use this character for

1. body parts

2. things that are personally valuable

The first rule I get, but the second rule I don't. Any hard and fast clues as to when this character can be used with a noun?

[shibo77]

子zi3 means son, seed, egg, something small or hard, and person. It acts like a prefix/suffix.

子女 children (son and daughter)

瓜子 seed of a melon

鱼子 roe (caviar)

石头子儿 pebble

女子 woman

body part? 子宫 uterus (womb)

personally valuable? 金子 gold

-Shìbó

[eastt]

Accoring to what I've been told' date=' you can't use this character for

1. body parts

?[/quote']

Oh, this rule seems unreasonable. 鼻子（nose），脖子（neck)，眼珠子（eyeball）are standard mandarin words, popularly used in today's China, especially in north. By the way, here the tone of 子 isn't included in so-called 4 tones.