Hacker News Reader

Comment by euske | Hacker News Reader

Yeah yeah, this all makes sense until you see 品, which isn't "a three-mouthed monster" but "goods".

Languages are weird, man.

I wOUld agree with you if it weren't for the wOUnd I have where a bOUlder pOUnded me in the head, so I don't have the cOUrage.

I see what yOU did there.

I interpret that character as "three boxes" so "goods" is a very intuitive translation :)

Yeah, I'm not sure what world you have to live in for "three-mouthed monster" to be a more obvious meaning for that glyph than "stacked crates".

But I think I might like to visit.

I see you haven't gotten to the 4th paragraph of TFA...

"口" = mouth, not crate

"品" is a stack of mouth characters

I read the whole article, thanks. Do you think it's possible that more than one square or rectangular thing may exist?

According to kanjinetworks.com that is, in fact, what the etymology boils down to:

> Square-shaped object (tripled) → high-quality goods spread throughout a protective container (compare 舗 and 販) → quality; counter for goods; (person's) character; grade; value.

http://www.kanjinetworks.com/eng/kanji-dictionary/online-kan...

Out of the several uses of 品, one is the verb "taste" which makes slightly more sense.

Whoa! I know that one -- it is "Shinagawa". I know this because my hotel was at that train station in Tokyo on a trip in the early 90's, long before signage in English was common in Japan..

It's actually just the "shina". The "gawa" is 川, river.

You need a lot of goods to feed many mouths.

Two or three of something is a pretty common pattern in kanji. Two basically implies "several", while three implies "a fuckton". Two suns, for instance, is "bright". Three suns is a sparkling crystal.

You might enjoy (and probably have already seen) "Why Japanese People": https://youtu.be/AqragQq63Js

Reply on news.ycombinator.com