OBI ; seal form similar . Has three mouths, taken to mean ‘talk a lot, many people talking’. Yamada has a similar view regarding a generalised meaning of talking. Ma takes ‘goods’ as a loan usage. Note that already in OBI this graph appears to have had quite a wide semantic range: ‘a kind, class, piece’ (Schuessler). As Mizukami and others have noted, three here denotes ‘many’ rather than specifically ‘three’ (cf. 森 40). MR2007:250; YK1976:430; KJ1970:207; AS2007:415; MS1995:v1:228-9. Take as three boxes.
Mnemonic: THREE BOXES OF QUALITY GOODS
406
L3
負
FU, makeru/kasu, ou
defeat, carry
9 strokes
負傷 FUSHŌ wound
負担 FUTAN burden
負け嫌い makegirai unyielding
Bronze ; seal . Generally taken as ‘person’ (see 人 41), on top of 貝 10 (original meaning ‘shell, money’) used here as phonetic with associated sense ‘the back’, to give ‘carry [someone] on the back’ (Katō, Yamada, Ogawa), and then more generally ‘carry on the back’. Shirakawa, though, takes it more literally as ‘carry shellfish on the back’. ‘Turn the back on, oppose’ may be seen as extended usage, and ‘be defeated’ as a loan usage. KJ1970:821; YK1976:433; MS1995:v2:1230-32; OT1968:952; SS1984:740.
Mnemonic: DEFEATED PERSON CARRIES SHELL-MONEY AWAY
407
L3
部
BU
part, section
11 strokes
部分 BUBUN part
部長 BUCHŌ head of division
部屋 heya* room
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen). Has right-hand determinative 阝 376 (full form: 邑), ‘village, settlement’, and 咅 ‘spit’ (see 389), here as phonetic with disputed associated sense. Katō and Yamada feel sense unclear as originally 部 was a proper noun for a tribe in western China, and treat it as loan usage for ‘part, section’. Tōdō, however, includes 部 in a word-family ‘oppose; divide’, linking it to a word later written 剖 1975 ‘cut, split open’. Shirakawa also takes the sense as ‘divide’. KJ1970:759; YK1976:435; TA1965:155-8; SS1984:745-6. Suggest taking 咅 as 立 77 ‘stand’ and 口 22 ‘mouth’.
Mnemonic: STAND OPEN-MOUTHED AT PART OF THE VILLAGE ON THE RIGHT
408
L4
服
FUKU
clothes, yield, serve
8 strokes
服装 FUKUSŌ clothing
服従 FUKUJŪ submission
服部 Hattori* a surname
OBI ; seal . The OBI form (left-hand) corresponds to 舟 1450 ‘boat, hollowed-out vessel’, with , made up originally of a hand positioned typically at the back of an element representing a person kneeling submissively (Katō) but here acting as phonetic with associated sense such as ‘lie/face downwards’, or ‘adhere to something’, to give overall meaning ‘work while looking down into a vessel (boat/large container)’. Mizukami gives an additional associated sense ‘boards attached tightly to sides of a boat’, and on this basis posits the extended meaning ‘something worn close to the body, clothes’. Additionally, may be treated as also having a semantic role: if ‘hand’ is taken with the other element interpreted as ‘person kneeling submissively’, this gives the meaning ‘obey, submit’ (Ogawa, Shirakawa). MS1995:v2:1100-01; KJ1970:793-4; OT1968:481; SS1984:750. Note: The element 月 in 服, which has gone through an intermediate stage , is an altered form of 舟, and is not 月 18 ‘moon’ or the abbreviated form of 肉 209 ‘meat, flesh’, which were often confused from an early period (though useful as mnenomics). We suggest taking as a hand reaching up to clothes hoist.
Mnemonic: SERVILE HAND PUTS CLOTHES ON HOIST UNDER THE MOON
409
L3
福
FUKU
good fortune
13 strokes
幸福 KŌFUKU happiness
福引 FUKUbiki lottery
福音書 FUKUINSHO Gospels
OBI forms , . The first OBI form has 示/礻 ‘altar, deity; show’ 723, and a CO 畐 as semantic and phonetic meaning ‘(full) wine jar’ (it is a pictograph of a wine jar). The second OBI has these two elements and in addition two hands, generally taken as indicating a person receiving wine after a ritual offering it to the deities. On this basis, the overall original sense of the graph was ‘sacred/auspicious wine from a ritual to the gods’. It then underwent a change to a more generalised meaning to ‘something received from the deities’, and by extension ‘good fortune’. KJ1970:827; MS1995:v2:954-5; YK1976:438. We suggest taking the right-hand components as 一 1 ‘one/single’, 口 22 ‘mouth/entrance’, and 田 63 ‘field’.
Mnemonic: ALTAR AT SINGLE ENTRANCE TO FIELD – WHAT GOOD FORTUNE
HINSHITSU quality
