Know Your Picture Characters Entry #85
A. 秋 B. 炭 C. 災 D. 畑
E. 灸 F. 淡 G. 毯 H. 滅
Over the holidays, Theoman and Shirley had a no-holds-barred, knock-down, drag-out, slugfest KYPC rematch. Shirley had previously claimed victory in Battle Bug. Would Theoman get his revenge in Battle Fire?
Round A: Our battle begins with a terribly disappointing tie. Both sides guessed autumn. Both sides were correct. Come on, people! This isn’t soccer! Someone needs to win!
Round B: Finally, in the second round, we were able to separate the wheat from the chaff, the men from the boys, and the . . . uh, rugs from the fields. Neither team was technically correct (the best kind of correct!), for expert kanji scholars will tell you that this character refers to coal. But I’m not about to allow another tie on my watch. We award the slight edge to Theoman, because rugs are found indoors, and this is where coal is typically burned (hey, you have to work with the tools you’re given).
Round C: Oh, come on! Another tie? This epic showdown is turning into a real DISASTER, no matter how much our participants seem to think C looks like coal. We just did coal. Get over it.
Round D: And now we come to the reverse of Battle Rug-Field. Theoman wins this time, probably because he cheated by actually knowing that the right side of the character refers to a rice field. But all’s fair in love, war, and bizarre internet guessing games.
Round E: Groan. What am I going to do with you people? Where’s the competitive spirit? If you don’t stop putting down the same answers, then I will have no choice but to resort to MOXIBUSTION. That’s right, MOXIBUSTION. That’ll make you turn pale.
Round F: And speaking of PALE, here we are. See, it has fire on the right, but the fierceness of the flames is mediated by the water on the left. See? Anyway, marginal victory to Shirley this time, with paleness being a common characteristic of the faces of those about to undergo her guess (at least as far as I know).
Round G: Not technically a tie, but hard to judge. How much difference is there between “ruin” and “disaster”? And, more importantly, which of them has more to do with RUGS? Digging deep into my reserves of arbitrariness, I will say that C, the real “disaster” character, has three arrows on top, and G has three slashes on the left, so those are closer. Advantage: Shirley.
Round H: And what are we left with in the end but the RUINS of a much-acclaimed conflict. Shirley comes out victorious again, 3-2, but the battle is much closer this time. If we only awarded points for truly correct answers, it would have been a tie. Sigh.
But now for next week. People keep telling me that some sort of “new” thing occurred recently. The kanji for “new” looks like this:
新
The right side of this character is the “axe” radical. So picture a shiny new axe while you’re trying to identify all these other things that are shiny and new. Like . . . parsley? Or . . . a hill. Or a soldier, an artisan, a generic word for “place,” prayer, folding, or “close” (as in “near,” not as in “shut”).
A. 匠 B. 折 C. 丘 D. 近
E. 芹 F. 所 G. 祈 H. 兵
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4 Comments »
January 2nd, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Hmm . . . that does kind of look like an axe. Anyway:
A. Folding: Everything else looks too crumpled to be a good fold.
B. Close: That radical on the left looks awfully touchy-feely.
C. Place: The dullest-looking of the kanji.
D. Hill: If you cover up everything but the very bottom of the kanji, you’ll see a hill as clear as day.
E. Parsley: That’s the “grass” radical, right?
F. Artisan: With an apprentice following behind.
G. Soldier: Fancy-looking sniper rifle on the left.
H. Prayer: Looks like it’s down on its knees.
January 6th, 2012 at 1:23 pm
I’m still stuck doing this without being able to see the characters, but never turn up your nose at a built-in excuse, I always say.
These are secret code for American popular songs:
A. “Parsley” Sage Rosemary and Thyme (immortalized in countless stuffing recipes since 1967)
B. One Tin “Soldier” (mawkish, didactic sentimentality at its finest)
C. Joe “Hill” (“alive as you and me”) (And you thought this was all going to be ’60’s and ’70’s stuff, didn’t you?)
D. The “Prayer” (I’ve actually never heard this one, but how can you go wrong with Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli?)
E. “Folding” of course is “The Gambler”–“you got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em” (I’m actually making myself nauseous just typing that)
F. “Close” To You–because, when you think about it, why DO birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?
G. “Artisan” Du Son, by Eau Forte–No idea, but Google says it exists.
H. The Kanji is just generic for “place,” but we’re going to pick a specific place, namely “Jerusalem,” even though the song is about England, dark Satanic mills, etc.: “Bring me my bow, of burning gold; bring me my arrows of desire; Bring me my spear, O clouds unfold; Bring me my chariot of fire.”
“He did it, Monty, old man, he ran them right off their feet.”
Cue the Vangelis theme.
January 6th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
NOTE: Not necessarily “American” popular songs, as it turned out.
January 9th, 2012 at 9:31 am
I was literally in the dark about this one. We had a power failure for several hours last night. I was about half way through my comments when the lights went off. I’ll try to get this in in time, but without all the usual clever humor and insights. No time now.
A. Soldier.
B. Prayer.
C. Parsley
D. Place where the hill is.
they look alike, sort of
E.Artisan
F. Pholding. You could spell that folding, but I like this better because of the P which also appears in the Japanese.
G. Close.
H. Hill, and not because it begins with an “h”,but because of the little legs at the bottom that you would need to climb it. Can’t remember the other reasons.