Know Your Picture Characters Entry #99

May 2nd, 2012 by Wordsman

A. 田 B. 心 C. 金 D. 隹

E. 立 F. 日 G. 木 H. 里

Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?  Well, let’s see what kind of wholes turned up.

Seeking to recreate a bell, Theoman put together ‘metal’ and ‘bird’ and ended up with . . . a drill.  Well, they both make noise, certainly, though one of them is typically seen as more pleasant than the other.  The idea of a ‘mind-tree’ was very close to ‘think,’ but he didn’t quite get there–you need to stick an eye in there as well (this is not, however, the same character for ‘think’ that I had intended).  A sun and a village, with an extra line tossed in for good measure, make ‘quantity,’ presumably referring to the large quantity of sun in Sun Village, which is the main reason people like it so much.  Standing in a rice field sure seemed like a lock for ‘gather,’ but the character I was thinking of was gather in the sense of ‘assemble’ rather than ‘harvest.’  So you put birds on top of a tree, because that’s where birds assemble.  Turns out, if you stand on top of a rice field, and add a tail, you get . . . a dragon.  Go figure.

Shirley put B, D, and E together and came up with a pretty good ‘idea’ . . . that is, if you assume that she must have accidentally typed D instead of F.  Heart-bird-stand doesn’t get you much, but stand-sun-heart is an idea, alright.  I’ll make sure to give you guys a stone to work with in the future so you can take care of these birds more efficiently.

A Fan thinks he can make me look silly by making references to a bunch of movies I haven’t seen, but I still know a thing or two.  I remember the octopus scene from Deer Hunter.  At least, I assume there must have been an octopus scene, because that’s what A Fan built with his ‘stand,’ ‘rice field,’ and ‘sun’ (okay, to be fair, you have to stick in a few other parts as well to get an octopus, but with that combo, no other kanji comes closer).  Then again, if he had just left out that field, he could have made some real ‘noise.’  He could have also achieved a similar effect by putting together a bell, which, by his logic, is a combination of Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, and about one-third of Deer Hunter.  Which leads us to the inevitable question: are these movies really that different from each other?

So, to review:

To build a bell: ‘stand’ on a ‘village,’ with ‘metal’ on the left
To build a thought: ‘rice field’ over ‘heart/mind’
To build a sound: ‘stand’ on the ‘sun’ (that’d better have you making some sound, anyway)
To build a gathering: ‘bird’ on top of ‘tree’

I realize that was a bit hard, so let’s make the challenge slightly different this time.  I’m still going to give you a bunch of kanji parts and their meanings, but I’m not going to tell you which is which.  We’re going to assume that Theoman already knows what most of these are, anyway, so assembly will be his job: give me responsibility, a wizard, to like, and a swamp.  A Fan and Shirley can choose to attempt this as well, or they can take on the simpler (?) task of identifying the pieces: a person, a knife, a mouth, a woman, a child, a mountain, a king, and water.

A. 子 B. 王 C. 刀 D. 水

E. 山 F. 口 G. 人 H. 女

Posted in Know Your Picture Characters | 4 Comments »

4 Responses

  1. TheomanZero Says:

    Responsibility is CB, which sounds like a position of great power (and therefore, great responsibility) to me.
    Wizard is FG. At least, that’s what I assume wizards are like.
    To like is HA. This one I actually knew, but . . . I like laughing?
    And if you put D and E together, I could see you eventually ending up with a swamp.

  2. A(nother) Fan Says:

    Yes, they are all very different movies. One of the interesting things about Vietnam movies is how many different ways they approach it. We didn’t even talk about “Good Morning, Vietnam” (interesting but somewhat over-rated) or “Coming Home” (searing, but the ending was trite) or the stupid Rambo movies (although the very first one wasn’t bad), or . . . You get the idea. And it wouldn’t hurt the Wordsman to see a few of the real classics he hasn’t seen already: Start with Deerhunter and work through the list from there.

  3. Shirley Says:

    A. Knife. It has a mean look about it. Threatening.

    B. A mountain because it’s there.

    C. Water. This particular water is falling over a waterfall.

    D. Woman. D. and H. have a similar look that seems sort of human, but D. looks older and more experienced.

    E. Mouth. I always thought television screens remind me of Milton’s famous mixed metaphor, “Blind mouths”. F. looks like a television screen.

    E. (OOPS! I got out of sequence here. The brilliant W.W. or his smart lovely
    assistant ought not have too much trouble figuring it out.) King because this looks like a crown.

    G. Person. This is a generic sort of person with no distinguishing characteristics. No personality, either.

    H. Child. Sort of like a smaller, simpler woman. A girl child, obviously.

  4. A(nother) Fan Says:

    This time the Wordsman has cleverly worked his love of cinema into the quiz in a new way. The winning kanji look like iconic images from the movies that illustrate the word in question:

    A. “that’s not a knife. . . .Now, THAT’S a knife!” Crocodile Dundee

    B. Gross. It’s Hannibal Lecter’s mouth, seen through that nasty mask they make him wear in “Silence of the Lambs.”

    C. Person. Specifically, Master Li Mu Bai from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” You can’t see him very well, but he’s gliding over the tops of those trees.

    D. Child, namely Ralphie’s brother from “A Christmas Story,” when he’s all bundled up for school and can’t move.

    E. Water, specifically FROZEN water, as in iceberg, as in . . what was that movie about the iceberg hitting the ocean liner?? It’s right on the tip of my tongue.

    F. A slightly square version of Yul Brynner’s head, from “The King and I.”

    G. Mount Doom from “LOTR: The Return of the King,” but before Gollum falls in and everything blows up.

    H. A woman, specifically, the Wicked Witch of the West, from “The Wizard of Oz.”

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