Random Character of the Day

[Jim]

On 8/31/2023 at 10:44 PM, Lu said:

This word is apparently not as rare as one would think. At least not on this forum ?

Which novel did you see it in?

Hah, search function must be borked as I did try checking. It was in 李乔's 荒村, one of his trilogy on Taiwanese colonial history.

[Demonic_Duck]

On 8/31/2023 at 11:41 PM, Jim said:

search function must be borked

 

I had the same problem with searching for another rare character recently. From a bit of testing, it seems like any search term under 4 characters returns no results (119 results for hats, 0 results for hat). It's pretty common for site search functions to disallow searches under a certain length, and often that minimum length doesn't work well for Chinese, but at least it should be showing an error message rather than "0 results"... paging @roddy?

[Tomsima]

One wonders why 馘 came to be preferred over 聝 for a character that means 割取敌人的左耳，用以计数报功. I wonder if it's because the important thing is that the ear represents the heads you have taken in battle, the decapitated head being the emphasised thing not the ear itself...

[Lu]

On 9/1/2023 at 5:33 AM, Demonic_Duck said:

It's pretty common for site search functions to disallow searches under a certain length, and often that minimum length doesn't work well for Chinese, but at least it should be showing an error message rather than "0 results"

The forums are best searched through Google, basically. Type site:chinese-forums.com and then the search term to search only the forums and not the rest of the internet.

[Demonic_Duck]

On 9/1/2023 at 11:38 PM, Lu said:

The forums are best searched through Google, basically. Type site:chinese-forums.com and then the search term to search only the forums and not the rest of the internet.

 

That's how I found the post I was looking for in the end. I don't mind the in-site search function being less powerful than Google, that's expected, just it'd be nice if it showed an error message on invalid input rather than showing wrong info.

[Jim]

Here's one I've missed all these years: 水浒秘闻：为什么石秀的绰号叫做“拚命三郎”？ - 知乎 (zhihu.com)

 

[jannesan]

堃 and its variant 坤 which apparently means earth in something called the Eight Trigrams, but I saw it appear in a name of a company. Generally names is where I encounter the most unknown characters and I’m not sure how to approach memorizing those ..

[sanchuan]

On 10/23/2023 at 5:37 AM, jannesan said:

堃 and its variant 坤

Strictly speaking, It would be more accurate to say that 堃 is a variant of 坤, rather than the other way around.

 

(坤 being the conventional 八卦 name for the notion of pure Yin 阴, the cosmic force that finds concrete form in 地, the earth, and that contrasts with pure Yang 阳, which is instead embodied in 天, the sky, and called 乾.)

[Dlezcano]

酡 tuó. The meaning is "a flushed face after drinking alcohol". I saw it in the word 酡颜 on a sentence of 《黄金时代》：这时候陈清扬面有酡颜……。

[Dlezcano]

腚 dìng. (buttocks) I heard  光腚 (bare buttocks; naked) long ago but never knew this was the character in it until recently. I haven't heard any other usages for this character, so I guess it must be somehow special.

[sanchuan]

謐 ㄇㄧˋ / 谧 mì = quiet, tranquil

 

Note the phonophore (必 over 皿), which, as far as I understand, is absolutely sui generis.

[Tomsima]

very interesting, seems like the 皿 corrupted into 山 in most other cases (eg 密). Hate to be the sui generis party pooper, but apparently 㴵 is a thing (https://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb&char=%E3%B4%B5)

[sanchuan]

 

On 3/29/2024 at 1:02 PM, Tomsima said:

Hate to be the sui generis party pooper

Not at all! Thanks for sleuthing up 㴵 and suggesting a corruption is at play. I'm persuaded that's the case here. 

 

I'll note that 㴵 seems obsolete in Modern Standard Mandarin, whereas 谧 is still productive in a handful of different adjectives (so still potentially useful if you're writing something fancy).

[sanchuan]

憇 qì = (to) rest

 

Variant of 憩, itself likely derived from 恬 (tián: quiet, calm) + 息 (xī: rest, break).

 

Worth noting that the 舌 in 恬 is actually a contraction of 甜, so the variant (which doesn't appear to be a recent simplification) isn't entirely without merit. 

[calculatrix]

沟   gōu

Today I learned that this character also means 100.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000 = 10³² = lots of quintilions.

Does anybody know, why and when someone decided that such a big number has to get its own symbol? 

Who on earth needs and uses it?

Merchants? No way.

Scientists? They have better ways to write numbers.

I'm confused.

 

 

[Lu]

On 5/11/2024 at 8:27 PM, calculatrix said:

Who on earth needs and uses it?

Buddhists? To count the years until the next kalpa, or some such use?

[sanchuan]

Apparently it's part of a series: 京（10¹⁶）、垓（10²⁰）、秭（10²⁴）、穰（10²⁸）、溝（10³²）、澗（10³⁶）、正（10⁴⁰）、載（10⁴⁴）、極（10⁴⁸）. 

 

I would take these values with a huge grain of salt though, but then I'm not a Chinese mathematician. A very cursory google-hit overview suggests that this character usage, niche as it must be, is not unknown in Japan (and, for all I know, may even have originated there).

[cncorrect]

On 5/12/2024 at 2:27 AM, calculatrix said:

Does anybody know, why and when someone decided that such a big number has to get its own symbol? 

This counting method was first introduced in an ancient Chinese math book 《数术记遗》. Here is a snippet: '黄帝为法，数有十等。及其用也，乃有三焉。十等者，亿、兆，京、垓、秭、穰、沟、涧、正、载。三等着，谓上、中、下也。其下数者。十十变之，若言十万曰亿，十亿曰兆，十兆曰京也。中数者，万万变之，若言万万曰亿、万万亿曰兆，万万兆曰京。上数者，数穷则变，若言万万曰亿，亿亿曰兆，兆兆曰京也。从亿至载，终于大衍。下数浅短，计事则不尽，上数宏阔，世不可用。故其传业，唯以中数耳。'.

 

About 《数术记遗》: https://baike.baidu.com/item/数术记遗/7007761?fr=ge_ala

[sanchuan]

祆 xiān (sometimes erroneously written 祅): Ormazda, god of the Zoroastrians; Zoroastrianism.

[Tomsima]

翩 ㄆㄧㄢ pian1  'swift flight'

 

turned up in 浮想联翩 which I previously presumed was the 篇 of 废话连篇 (and of course the note from 规范 reads 注意 “联翩”不要误写作“连篇”