A. 冊　B. 台　C. 杯　D. 匹　E. 本　F. 枚　G. 羽

Clearly, this week’s puzzle was too easy, because pretty much everyone got it either right or partially right.  A Fan was dead on with his guess of A, which proves that sometimes laziness is the answer.  Shirley came close, for while she was not able to identify the classifier used when counting books, she did pick out the kanji that means “book” (yes, they’re different).  It seems that Dragon should perhaps lose points for specifically abandoning the correct answer, but the precise description of the meaning of B serves to remind us that reading is an act of serious devotion . . . and, apparently, decapitation.

So here we go.  A is the counter word used for counting books or other bound volumes.  B covers a variety of machines, including computers, microwaves, and cars.  C is for glassfuls and is part of the expression “Kampai!” the Japanese equivalent of “Cheers!” (though in terms of exact meaning, it is closer to “Down the hatch!”)  D is a counter word for animals (and, if you feel like being rude, people).  E is nice and confusing, because while on its own it means “book,” among other things, it is the counter word for long, cylindrical objects.  The definition of “cylindrical” is pretty broad, however, and it can be used to count a wide variety of objects, including pens, trees, swords, umbrellas, roads, and even (in a metaphorical sense) telephone calls and bus routes.  F is for flat objects like pieces of paper, plates, and CD’s.

G is the counter for birds, which I included for two reasons.  One is that it features in the Japanese equivalent of “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo“: niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru.  It means “There are two chickens in the garden.”  Our counter word friend G is the third wa.

The other reason is this passage from Wikipedia, which I found while doing “research” for this entry:

“Japanese Buddhist monks were not allowed to eat any meat other than birds, but they liked rabbit meat so much they came up with the contrived ‘explanation’ that rabbits are actually birds, and that their ears are unusable wings. The rationale was that while moving, the rabbits touched ground only with two feet at a time.”

Oh, those wacky monks!

I know that some of you sometimes feel lost when reading KYPC, so I’ve decided to help you out by teaching you some directions.  Here is this week’s two-part challenge: I am giving you two sets of directions, one generic (up, down, left, right) and one cardinal (North, South, East, West).  First you get to guess which is which, and then you can see if you can pick out North.  Once you have, we’ll be able to use this information to align our linguistic compasses, and you’ll never be lost again.  Possibly.

A. 北　B. 西　C. 東　D. 南

A. 上　B. 下　C. 左　D. 右