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343
L4
進
SHIN, susumu/meru
advance
11 strokes
ZENSHIN advance
SHINKA evolution
SHINGEN advice, proposal
OBI ; seal . Comprises 85 ‘walk, go’,
and 324 (‘bird’) as phonetic with associated
sense ‘go out (with footwear on)’.
MS1995:v2:1296-7; KJ1970:563; YK1976:289.
Mnemonic: ADVANCE LIKE A MOVING BIRD
344
L4
世
SEI, SE, yo
world, generation
5 strokes
SEIKI century
SEWA care
yononaka world at large
Bronze ; seal . Generally taken as the graph
for ‘thirty’ (the ‘ten’ graph 35 written three
times in a slightly modified way), on the basis
that about thirty years made up one generation.
Qiu, though, considers the early Zhou
bronze form of ‘clearly was simply the top
part of ’ , which was the original way of
writing 428 ‘leaf’; as both Qiu and Katō note,
also had the meaning ‘generation’ (Qiu links
with the fact that leaves grow out once a year).
In similar vein, Shirakawa takes as originally
depicting plants growing. ‘The world, society’ is
an extended usage. MS1995:v1:10-11, v2:1126-
7; KJ1970:50-51; YK1976:295; QX2000:182;
SS1984:492. Suggest take the two lower laterals
as ‘two’ 65.
Mnemonic: THE ODD WORLD OF THE GEN-
ERATION OF ’32
345
L3
整
SEI, totonou/eru
arrange
16 strokes
SEIRI arrangement
SEIBI maintenance
BICHŌSEI fine tuning
Bronze ; seal . Has (a variant of
1727 ‘edict’ qv), which in itself has a meaning
of ‘arrange properly’, and 43 (‘correct’) as
phonetic with similar associated sense ‘put in
order, arrange’; in Tōdō’s word-family ‘bring together/arrange
in one place’. MS1995:v1:586-7;
KJ1970:584; YK1976:306; TA1965:472-4.
Mnemonic: EDICT ENFORCES CORRECT
ARRANGEMENT
346
L3
昔
8
SEKI, SHAKU, mukashi
olden times, past
strokes
SEKIJITSU old days
mukashiFŪ old-style
KONJAKU past and present
OBI ; seal . Etymology disputed. Katō and
Tōdō treat as 66 ‘day(s)’, with as phonetic
meaning ‘pile up’. In Tōdō’s word-family ‘pile
up, accumulate’. Thus ‘accumulated days’. Ma
takes it as originally showing a flood; Shirakawa
considers it originally to show dried meat,
with sunlight used to dry; for both Ma and
Shirakawa, the sense of ‘passing time’ is loan usage.
KJ1970:614-5; TA1965:364-7; MR2007:354;
SS1984:505; JA2000:437. Suggest the upper
part as two ‘tens’ 35 and ‘one’ 1.
Mnemonic: TWENTY-ONE DAYS AGO IS THE
PAST
The 200 Third Grade Characters 129