480531170

660
L1
賀
GA
congratulations
12 strokes
GASHIcongratulations
NENGAJŌNew Year card
SHUKUGAcelebration
Bronze ; seal . Has 10 ‘shell, currency,
valuable item’, and 453 (‘add’) as phonetic
with associated sense which Tōdō takes to
be ‘add on top’, regarding the likely original
meaning of as ‘pile gifts up high’. The graph
is in Tōdō’s word-family ‘add on top’, as also
is (NJK meaning ‘excellent, consider fine’),
and Schuessler links the two also, noting that
‘congratulate’ already stood as an early meaning
for , a consideration which perhaps leads
Mizukami also to attribute an overall meaning
‘express joy and add (gifts) on top’. Mizukami
sees ‘be pleased’ as an extended (generalized)
sense; ‘praise, congratulate’ are also derivative
meanings. TA1965:583-6; AS2007:300;
MS1995:v2:1234-5.
Mnemonic: CONGRATULATIONS ON ADDING
TO YOUR SHELL-MONEY
661
L3
快
KAI, kokoroyoi
pleasant, cheerful
7 strokes
FUYUKAIunpleasant
KAIRAKUpleasure
KAIKATSUcheerful
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has 164 ‘heart,
mind’, and (CO [see 289], possibly originally
archer’s hand pulling bowstring, thus opening
up front of body, and so ‘open’) as semantic
and phonetic meaning ‘open’, thus ‘one’s heart
opens’, and ‘be pleased, pleasant’. KJ1970:367;
YK1976:88; OT1968:360. Suggest taking as
man with back-pack.
Mnemonic: BACK-PACKER’S HEART IS
ALWAYS PLEASANT AND CHEERFUL
662
L3
解
KAI, GE, toku
unravel, explain,
solve, loosen
13 strokes
KAISETSUcommentary
RIKAIunderstanding
BUNKAIdismantling
OBI ; seal . OBI has 108 ‘ox, cow’, and
element showing two hands round a third
element – the pictographic stage of 97
‘horn’. This is commonly taken as phonetic with
associated sense ‘divide up, split’, giving ‘divide
up an ox/cow’, then more generally ‘divide, take
apart’. Ma, alternatively, takes as semantic. It
may be both semantic and phonetic. Seal form
has different composition, with 198 ‘knife’, to
give ‘cut up’; already used in generalized sense
at an early period, not necessarily ‘cut up an
ox’. Schuessler treats ‘understand’ as a separate
word related to that for ‘divide up’, rather
than an extended sense. MS1995:v2:1182-3;
MR2007:306; KJ1970:150; YK1976:92.
Mnemonic: SOLVE PROBLEM BY CUTTING
OFF COW’S HORN
663
L3
格
KAKU, KŌ
standard, status
10 strokes
SHIKAKUqualifications
SEIKAKUpersonality
SHOYŪKAKUgenitive case
Bronze ; seal . Has 73 ‘tree’, and 462
(originally ‘come down’; now ‘each’) as phonetic
with associated sense ‘high, tall and straight’,
to give ‘a tree straight and tall’. Katō notes
there are few examples of actual use in this
sense, but that it was used (as a loan graph)
from Han times for ‘standard’, which appears
to have become a more dominant sense.
MS1995:v1:664-5; KJ1970:193-4; YK1976:96.
Mnemonic: EACH TREE MEETS A STANDARD
The 185 Fifth Grade Characters 215