Know Your Picture Characters Entry #55
A. 嬉 B. 怒 C. 恐 D. 悲 E. 退屈 F. 恥
Time to see just how in touch with your emotions you really are.
Theoman presented an interesting theory of emotion based on happiness, sadness, and anger. I thought that the elemental emotional states were sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic, but I guess I’m just old-fashioned. He cleverly spotted the same “element” in B, C, and D (and, if you look carefully, it’s over there in F, too, stretched out tallways). For the most part, his basic emotions matched up with this set; unfortunately, his choice of order was poor. In fact it’s B that’s anger, and D that’s sadness. He can be sad and angry about that, I guess. He also missed C, fear, which is a pretty primal emotion if you ask me.
A Fan also failed to record a correct answer, though he gets eclecticity points for managing to reference both Men in Black and A Charlie Brown Christmas in the same post. He also gets sympathy points for misspelling “embarrass” the same way I always misspell “embarrass.” It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Or embarrassed about. In other words, no cause for F.
Shirley continued her roll, knocking off B, anger, right away. She also spotted boredom at E (apparently she was not as enthralled by the Bug in Men in Black as A Fan was). And she even gets a half-point bonus for recognizing that A is not sad.
And apparently if you scare a Dragon its hairs stand on end. I didn’t even know dragons had hair.
The misfit of the week is A, happiness. I could make some sort of comment about how you all chose to focus on the negative emotions (except Theoman), but I suppose most of the blame is mine for including only one positive emotion in the list. It’s hard to stay happy when you’re surrounded by boredom, fear, and anger. But now you all know how to get to your happy place.
But helping people be properly emotionally adjusted is not my only goal here on KYPC. I also like to dispense wisdom. In this case, it’s wisdom of the obvious, trite variety. That’s right, this week we’re going to learn some proverbs! Don’t worry–these are all tidbits of wisdom you should be familiar with. That is, you should be familiar with their figurative meanings. Someone out there with more familiarity with Japanese could, if he was feeling adventurous, take a stab at their literal meanings as well. Hey, No Pain, No Gain, right? And if you miss, it’s all okay: There’s No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk. Now, once again, I must remind participants not to collaborate on answers. No matter how much you may think that Two Heads Are Better Than One, in fact this is a case of Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth.
Is this challenge too difficult? Is it borderline harassment? Am I, as I have so often been accused of, simply being sadistic? Well, let’s just say that The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree.
A. 蛙の子は蛙 B. 虎穴に入らずんば虎児を得ず
C. 三人寄れば文殊の知恵 D. 船頭多くして船山に登る
E. 覆水盆に返らず
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4 Comments »
May 23rd, 2011 at 9:10 am
I’m gonna say A is The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree because the first and last character are the same and in between them is the character for child. That would seem to indicate similarity between parent and child (something’s child is something).
May 24th, 2011 at 4:15 pm
D. is “Plus ca change, plus ce la meme chose.”
E. is “Mathein Pathein.” (which actually is one of your choices, only in Greek. Know which one, smart guy?)
C. is “Ein gutes Bier ist ein guter Freund.” (Which isn’t so much a proverb as a grammatical mnemonic device.)
and A. is the Apple/Tree thing, because you can see how the apple hasn’t fallen that far, as compared to B., which is “The acorn falls a million miles away from the tree.”
May 26th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
E. I’ll start with “First we’ll kill all the Lawyers” I know, know! It’s Shakespeare. but it’s quoted often enough to qualify as a proverb. Of course it is misused these days to express a sentiment which destroys Shakespeare’s meaning. (Painful to those of us who are more literate and rather fond of certain lawyers.) It’s a hard call, but I’d say E. looks the least meaningful – and positively mean as well. So it fits.
B. My personal favorite wrong headed proverbs, “Money can,t buy happiness.” That’s technically true, of course, but it does make misery easier to bear. When quoted it is usually by someone who is comfortably affluent, and is usually followed by “If you have your health, you have everything.” Oh yeah? I’d rather be rich and healthy than poor and sick. Try being sick these days without health care insurance. Expressing such a complex caveat requires a lot of words, so B. And the caveats SHOULD be expressed.
A. Another idiotic proverb, “It’s never too late.” Oh yeah? Tell that to an eighty something. A. looks sufficiently idiotic.
C. “It’s an ill wind that blows no good.” As someone of the pessimistic persuasion, I say balderdash. C. seems confused enough to come up with such an idea.
Which leaves D. How about “A stich in time saves nine”, ending with one that is actually true. I know this because I am a procrastinator. It runs in the family.
I have assumed that we were supposed to use our own choice of proverbs and I have gleefully done so. It was fun. Gave me a chance to vent.
May 27th, 2011 at 6:48 am
D is No Pain, No Gain. There are pointy things in it and they look painful.