#defeat

JPWA stud Chris Knight is defeated and dominated by fantastic heel Savage.

Happy February! Like you all, I’m excited for Single Awareness Day tomorrow! So, as a SAD gift to you (I’m not sure if that’s a fortunate or unfortunate acronym), here’s the 9th K.O.!

First, we have 貝. 貝 is supposed to be a picture of a shell. Maybe not a good one, but maybe that was what shells in China looked like at the time. Anyways, before there was printed money, people would have to trade stuff of actual value, like gold, salt, their firstborn daughter, that sort of thing. Shells were very common as currency because they were sparkly and decently durable. So, 貝 is often used in kanji that have to do with money like 購, which means ‘subscription’ or 'buy’ or the '販’ in 販売 meaning 'marketing, trade’. Of course, there are black sheep roaming around, but you get the point.

員 is one of those black sheep. It’s made up of the radicals of 貝 and 口. A mouth and money? It means member. It can also mean 'employee’ or 'the one in charge’. In words, 員 can be used in '会員’ to mean the word 'member’, '議員’ means 'member of the Diet’ (Diet is a government group in Japan, not just a weight-influencing program), or '社員’ which means 'company employee’. It’s a very flexible kanji.

Next is 負. 負 is sort of weird. It combines 貝 and 人 to make….things a burden. A person working for money undoubtably has some sort of burden, right? They need a shelter, they need to eat, they need to buy Fire Emblem…that sort of thing. When 負 is used in the verb 負う, it means 'to bear, carry on one’s back’. It can also mean 'defeat’. 負け means 'defeat or loss’. In other words, 負 typically means something weighing down on a person, be it a burden or a loss. 

Moving out of the shell zone, we have 糸. By itself, 糸 means 'thread’. Seriously, this is a kanji that is its own word, with no Okurigana (the hiragana you would see after a kanji, like the 'け’ in 負け)! Most of the uses of 糸 are to do with string. There are also some figurative uses like '糸口’. This means 'clue’, but more literally it means 'the beginning of a thread’. Obviously, a clue is just one part of a bigger picture, so it is symbolic of the start of a thread. 

So last is 細. So 糸 + 田 (string + field) is…..thin, slender, or narrow. At first glance it may seem like it doesn’t make sense, but really think about it. It’s a field with the size of a piece of string. That would be pretty skinny. It’s also its own word to mean 'small, little’ or 'details’ (which are often small). Often it’s seen in the adjective '細い’ which does mean 'thin, slender’ or 'unlucky’ in billboard slang for anyone who plays.

And that’s it for #9. I’m thinking about writing more conversation related Japanese for the next Edu-post. Remember, any questions Japanese related are welcome!