Jumbles: Part 3
Friday, May 23rd, 2008
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One might think of a jumble as a negative thing: a massive ball of knotted string that takes forever to untangle, a scrambled mind that keeps nothing straight, a mess of feelings and problems that you can’t sort out, a messy house where you can’t locate what you need.
But there are also positive jumbles, and for some reason (hunger?!), I can mostly think of examples related to food: an appetizer sampler plate, variety packs of candy bars for Halloween, a stew. In fact, when you cook and mix things together, a jumble is often the goal.
Chaos of Color, the Big Hodgepodge
Photo credit: © John W. Hammond
Kun-kun 混 combinations formed with the yomi ma(zeru) often have to do with jumbles. They even sound like jumbles. Take, for instance, this word:
混ぜこぜ (mazekoze: jumble (of two or several things); mix)
Japanese usually write this word in hiragana.
The consonants z and k in mazekoze create the impression of chaos, just as the ateji term mechakucha (目茶苦茶: disorder, confusion) has the onomatopoetic feel of disorganization. Why should this be, when the repetition of syllables (ze in mazekoze, cha in mechakucha) create some semblance of order?
Loopy Glass Jungle
Photo credit: © John W. Hammond
With the yomi of ma(zeru), 混 plays into at least one compound with a pejorative sense, bringing us back to the downside of jumbles:
混ぜ返す (mazekaesu: to banter, make fun of (what a person says), jeer at; to stir up) to toss + to repeat
Ma(zeru) can also mean “to toss.” Given the breakdown, I suppose 混ぜ返す is like throwing words back in someone’s face.
But the next ma(zeru) jumble is neutral:
取り混ぜる (torimazeru: to mix, put together)
to take + to mix
And this one is puzzling:
かき混ぜ規則 (kakimazekisoku: scrambling)
to mix + rule (last 2 chars.)
Why is “rule” (規則, kisoku: rule + rule) at the end? And why does the word start with hiragana? I’ve solved the second question (see the next link), but I remain at a loss about the sudden appearance of rules inside our jumble. Maybe someone in Old Japan couldn’t tolerate the disorder for a second longer and decided to implement some rules!
Time for a Verbal Logic Quiz!
Posted by Eve Kushner in Kanji Curiosity |
May 24th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Eve, Eve, Eve,
Where on earth do you find out about all these words with “maze?” Do they all derive from Spahn, and/or Halpern? Like “kakimazekisoku?” I bet you could spend a WHOLE LOT OF TIME riding on the Yamanotesen and not hear that expression once. Thank you so much for helping enrich my Japanese vocabulary — and all in the name of kanji. How about that!
Hey, and the photos in this week’s edition are NICE.
Your blog is obviously a labour of love!
Lonnie Wiig
Professional Diploma (teaching Japanese at the secondary level), Univ. of Hawai’i
M.A., Asian Studies, Hiroshima University
Lw@cre8communic8.com
May 24th, 2008 at 4:11 am
Eve,
And what is that little box in the upper right corner of my comment that looks like the shadow of a passport photo? Is that a hint that you would prefer for your bloggees to submit a photo with their comments?
Lonnie
May 24th, 2008 at 4:47 am
Thanks for the nice comments, Lonnie!
Yes, the maze- words came from Spahn, though Halpern has 3: 混ぜ返す (mazekaesu) and 掻き混ぜる (kakimazeru), which I included, plus 混ぜ合わす (mazeawasu: to mix together; blend, compound), which I omitted.
Strange, though–now that I’m looking back at Spahn and Halpern to answer your question, I see that the 掻 of 掻き混ぜ規則 was there all along. Somehow it disappeared in my notes, and then I had to hunt it down again. Well, if one needs efficiency and logic in one’s life, kanji studies are probably not the way to go!
Oh, I think this was it. I got that word (掻き混ぜ規則) from Breen, where the 1st kanji was missing. That’s how the hunt for the missing kanji unfolded…
And yes, the box in the upper corner of your comment is BEGGING for a so-called gravatar. To figure out how to add one, you could go to this JPod posting:
http://blogs.japanesepod101.com/?p=963
Or you could go to this site (which is where JPod will send you anyway):
http://en.gravatar.com/site/signup
Looking forward to seeing your gravatar soon!
May 25th, 2008 at 2:55 am
This かき混ぜ規則 reminded me for some strange reason of Urdu poets. They spend all their time reversing meanings of sentences. You think they are going one way but they reverse the whole thing by the end of the sentence. One example is of a famous poem where the poet starts by saying life is painful, so it is time to leave so you can return as he enjoys the pain. Convoluted!
May 31st, 2008 at 1:59 am
I checked the expression 混ぜ返す in two dictionaries and both of them spell it 雑ぜ返す. In the May 9th issue of this blog, Eve-san discussed three spellings for “mazaru”: 混ざる, 交ざる, and 雑ざる. I am a native speaker but I can’t tell the difference between these spellings and I would still prefer to write it 混ぜ返す.