Radical 51
Encyclopedia
Radical 51 is one of 31 out of the total 214 Kangxi radicals written with three strokes.
There are only nine characters derived from this radical, and some modern dictionaries have discontinued its use as a section header. In such characters that are derived from it, it mostly takes a purely phonetic role, as in 肝 "liver".
In origin, the character depicts a kind of fork used as weapon used in hunting or in warfare, or alternatively either a pestle or a shield
. It can be traced to the seal script
.
The high frequency and polysemy of the character poses a serious problem for Chinese translation software. The word "tree trunk; to do" (rarely also "human body"), rendered as in simplified Chinese, acquired the meaning of "to fuck
" in Chinese slang.
Notoriously, the 2002 edition of the widespread Jinshan Ciba Chinese-to-English dictionary for the Jinshan Kuaiyi translation software rendered every occurrence of as "fuck", resulting in a large number of signs with irritating English translations throughout China, often mistranslating "dried" as in "dried fruit" in supermarkets as "fuck the fruits" or similar.
There are only nine characters derived from this radical, and some modern dictionaries have discontinued its use as a section header. In such characters that are derived from it, it mostly takes a purely phonetic role, as in 肝 "liver".
In origin, the character depicts a kind of fork used as weapon used in hunting or in warfare, or alternatively either a pestle or a shield
Shield
A shield is a type of personal armor, meant to intercept attacks, either by stopping projectiles such as arrows or redirecting a hit from a sword, mace or battle axe to the side of the shield-bearer....
. It can be traced to the seal script
Seal script
Seal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...
.
In simplified Chinese
As a character (not a radical), has risen to new importance, and even notoriety due to the 20th century Chinese writing reform. In simplified Chinese, takes the place of a number of other characters with the phonetic value gān or gàn, e.g. of "dry" or "trunk, body", so that may today take a wide variety of meanings.The high frequency and polysemy of the character poses a serious problem for Chinese translation software. The word "tree trunk; to do" (rarely also "human body"), rendered as in simplified Chinese, acquired the meaning of "to fuck
Fuck
"Fuck" is an English word that is generally considered obscene which, in its most literal meaning, refers to the act of sexual intercourse. By extension it may be used to negatively characterize anything that can be dismissed, disdained, defiled, or destroyed."Fuck" can be used as a verb, adverb,...
" in Chinese slang.
Notoriously, the 2002 edition of the widespread Jinshan Ciba Chinese-to-English dictionary for the Jinshan Kuaiyi translation software rendered every occurrence of as "fuck", resulting in a large number of signs with irritating English translations throughout China, often mistranslating "dried" as in "dried fruit" in supermarkets as "fuck the fruits" or similar.
Derived characters
Literature
- Leyi Li: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7561902042
- Rick Harbaugh, Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary, Yale University Press (1998), ISBN 9780966075007.http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipu.cgi?b5=%A4z