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CHO ・ CHA KU
a ra wa su ・ i chi ji ru shi i
Glyph elements [ Toggle Font ]
In old Chinese, also meaning TO CATCH an illness, and, an ACTION STILL IN PROGRESS, to SUFFER from COMING INTO CONTACT WITH disease that causes a BURNING SENSATION, likely a description of anal or pharyngeal gonorrhea:「Some men with gonorrhea may have no symptoms at all. However, common symptoms in men include a burning sensation when urinating, or a white, yellow, or green discharge from the penis that usually appears 1 to 14 days after infection. Sometimes men with gonorrhea get painful or swollen testicles…Symptoms of rectal infection in both men and women may include discharge, anal itching, soreness, bleeding, or painful bowel movements.」
[ https://www.cdc.gov/std/gonorrhea/stdfact-gonorrhea.htm 2012-08-19 ]
Initially the fame of a great AUTHOR, and authors often used pseudonyms (that「homosexual someone」reference), then to the LITERARY WORKS themselves, and finally ARRIVING ON THE SCENE perhaps with a flourish at a party or the opening of an opera and everyone would TAKE NOTICE, quite OBVIOUS and REMARKABLE.
Note some scholars suggest that this is the old version of the glyph that has now morphed into「looking under a sheep's tail」(着, see that glyph for an explanation of why) and if so, the topmost element might be「horns, raised on both sides, or, spurting in a stance.」…the suggested replacement glyph also refers to anal intercourse (or its prevention) of another sort, so the scholars may be right about this one.
Additional meanings are to COVER UP with clothing, APPLY OINTMENT to a festering lesion, to GILD or APPLY VENEER and cover what is underneath, to GIVE A BAD NAME or SULLY A REPUTATION, all related to that burning sensation. ACTION STILL IN PROGRESS is related to WEARING UPPER BODY CLOTHING but perhaps not any lower body clothing…?
External source definitions …excluding politically incorrect concepts and other meanings deemed offensive today; may include extended definitions, euphemisms, and mnemonics)
Chinese: to make known; to show; to prove; to write; book; outstanding; to wear (clothes); to contact; to use; to apply; aspect particle indicating action in progress; to touch; to come in contact with; to feel; to be affected by; to catch fire; to fall asleep; to burn; (chess) move; trick; all right!; (dialect) to add
Japanese EDRDG: renowned, publish, write, remarkable, phenomenal, put on, don, wear, arrival, finish (race), counter for suits of clothing, literary work
Unihan extended: manifest; to wear
Always keep in mind that these glyphs most likely were originally designed by groups of clever old men as vulgar riddles for their own entertainment
(see 籒 for that),
representing Chinese society many thousands of years ago, but intended NOT as a written or spoken language when created.
If these glyphs had been intended for language use, the sages could not have possibly designed a worse system!
Is it truly possible that all these glyphs started out as off-color jokes and puzzles?
Yes! It is, and often with multiple correct answers to each riddle, the same as is true today.
Sex had no shame in ancient China.
Why would it?
But, have there been necessary rewrites and altered explanations of the original elemental meanings over the centuries?
No one is suggesting these glyphs depict contemporary life in China, Japan, or anywhere else.
This site describes glyph meanings, not people.
These glyphs however, describe many and various things, including people, long before there were any notions of becoming politically incorrect.
The question to be answered is, should these glyphs continue being used, by anyone, anywhere, for expressing language?
(More...)
Despite how seemingly bad our human existence is today, do you actually believe that the so-called good old days were any better?
Or could they have been worse?
By the way, with a limited number of the same elements used by the sages again and again to form these glyphs,
you should expect to find the same explanations again and again, as tedious as that may become, and as an inherent trait of any lexicon.
This site explains multiple meanings of glyphs ignored or censored by other sources, generally as being too embarrassing to admit today.
Primal elements
Used in glyphs (or, see also): 6 entries
Related glyphs [ Toggle font ]
Similar glyphs with related meanings: 27 entries
- Glyph.04447
- Strokes: 11 ~ 12
- jlpt-N3 grade_06
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This publication has included material from the MDBG free online English to Chinese dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
This publication has included material from the JMdict (EDICT, etc.) dictionary files in accordance with the license provisions of the Electronic Dictionaries Research Group.
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