Know Your Picture Characters Entry #81
A. 碇 B. 磯 C. 砲 D. 碁
E. 磨 F. 妬 G. 砂 H. 砕
The website isn’t really cooperating with me right now, so we’ll see whether or not this actually gets posted.
Perhaps our knowledge of kanji can tell us what we are meant to be. For instance, Theoman would make a pretty poor apothecary, because he tries to grind up his medicines using an anchor (A). On the other hand, he might be a pretty impressive player of Go, because he sees the entire beach (B) as his board. Other than that, he easily recognizes cannons (C) and jealousy (F), so . . . pirate, I guess?
In other news, A Fan is back–or is it that he never truly left? As usual, he does his best to test the boundaries of relevancy. B could be Captain Kangaroo, provided that he is captain of a ship, and also provided that he has run his ship aground on the beach (maybe he, too, disagrees with the prevailing belief that ships are meant to be crewed). F is in fact Mr. Green Jeans because he is green with envy, presumably based on his desire to throw Captain Kangaroo overboard and usurp his position as Captain of the grounded ship. Bunny Rabbit and Mr. Moose are blatant rip-offs of Bugs Bunny and Bullwinkle, respectively, and will thus not be acknowledged here.
That poor anchor. First Theoman tries to use it in his mortar, and now Shirley is attempting to load it into a cannon. Well, at least it can’t be said that it doesn’t lead an interesting life. Shirley is, however, the only one who knows a good beach when she sees it, but she is also familiar with the darker side of life: smashing and crushing (H). Also of note is the fact that both Shirley and Theoman seem to favor a magnetic Go board, though the actual magnet is . . . oh hell. Looks like I actually forgot to put the magnet character up there. I instead accidentally substituted a character meaning “sand” at G. Magnet looks like this:
磁
And E is for polishing. Or brushing your teeth.
Anyway, since words seem to be such a big deal around here, this week we will be looking at characters containing the element that means “word.” Their meanings include: punishment, to vow, to crawl, to examine/diagnose, prison, to attempt, glory, and the question word for who.
A. 試 B. 這 C. 診 D. 誉
E. 獄 F. 罰 G. 誓 H. 誰
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3 Comments »
November 28th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
A is “attempt” because it looks kind of slapdash.
B is “examine” because the “word” radical is being displayed.
C is “who” because the right side is rising, like the end of a question.
D is “vow” because it looks clenched in determination.
E is “prison”, as the “word” radical is trapped.
F is “punishment”, as the “word” radical is receiving a noogie.
G is “crawl” because the “word” radical is flattened out on the bottom.
H is “glory” because the “word” radical has scaffolding around it, like it’s a monument under construction.
November 29th, 2011 at 8:21 am
Clearly, today’s quiz is a meditation on the classic 1963 film, “The Great Escape.”
A. “Prison” of course is Stalag Luft III, the new high-security camp where the Germans stupidly decide to put all their rotten eggs in one basket.
B. “Vow” is Squadron leader Bartlett’s (a/k/a “Big X”) vow to bust 300-400 men, “scatter them allover Germany.”
C. “Attempt” refers to the various attempted escapes by Hilts, Ives (“the Mole”) abnd others before the big escape.
D. “Punishment” = “Cooler.”
E. “Crawl” refers to Danny and Willy (the “Tunnel Kings”) crawling through the dirt, especially after the numerous cave-ins. (“We need more wood!”)
F. “Who” refers to the heavy (perhaps sappy) discussions between Hendley and Colin about the meaningof the their lives (Colin: “You’re just a blur.” Hendley: “I know.”)
G. “Examine” refers to the German guards examing the hot stove on the 4th of July and discovering the first tunnel.
H. “Glory”–Well, all of them, really. Maybe Ashley-Pitt’s self-sacrifice at the train station typifies it best.
Admit it: You can hear that theme playing in your head right now. Bum, bum, bum, ba, de bum bum bum; bum bum, bup ba de bum bum bum . . .
December 4th, 2011 at 8:13 pm
A. Punishment. Seems as tho there ought to be a similarity between prison and punishment and A. and E. look more alike than any other two kanji. Both have things that could be bars, but as clues go, that one doesn’t help much since all the others do too. Both have little men at the end, and the guy in A. looks more like he is hurting. So A. is punishment.
B. Who? This kanji just looks questioning some how
C. Glory. Something glorious is happening. You can tell by the uplifting feeling of the kanji.
D. To vow. After getting the others, this is all that is left.
E. Prison. See A. This little guy is reasonably comfortable considering his surroundings.
F. Attempt. Obviously a steady reliable guy who works at achieving his goal. We could all emulate him, but will we? Aye, there’s the rub!
G. Crawl. There is a horizontal effect and it’s hard to crawl vertically.
H. Examine/diagnose. Another serious, reliable sort of person. Let us hope so, because most diagnosers are doctors and who wants an unreliable doctor, I ask you!