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Here’s a quiz for you. If you combine a horse and an insect, what do you get?

A fly on a horse?

Flies
Photo credit: Erin Tyner

A fly’s view of a horse?

View of an Approaching Fly
Photo credit: Bill Adams, HawaiiToday.com

A horsefly?

Horsefly
Photo credit: Mike Keeling

A horse that flies?

Actually, it’s none of those. I was just playing with you. Horsing around, you could say. OK, let me rephrase the question and give you slightly more legitimate choices. If you combine a horse and an insect, what new animal do you get?

1. a bird
2. a wolf
3. a rabbit
4. a cow

With most quizzes, I give the instant gratification of an answer. This time, you’ll have to wait a bit, while I assemble the various components of an explanation.

For now, I can show you how a horse (馬) and an insect (虫) mate, producing the following kanji:

騒 (SŌ, sawa(gu): clamor, noise, disturbance; to make a fuss)

On the Etymology of 騒 …

I came across this kanji twice in a short period—always an indication that I need to investigate it. The first time, I was taking a bath with Kawabata. That is, I was relaxing in the tub with Exploring Japanese Literature, in which classics from Japanese literature appear with terrific annotations that make these works accessible to the likes of me. I’m ever so slowly working my way through Snow Country Miniature, Yasunari Kawabata’s compression of his own masterpiece, Snow Country. At the rate I’ve been plodding along, it would have taken about six months’ worth of baths to get through the text. But now, because of a drought, they’ve implemented water rationing where I live, so baths are close to verboten. Since I rarely read this book anywhere else, there’s no telling when I might finish.

Anyway, in my most recent foray, I came across a long sentence that I’ll shorten as follows:

芸者を呼んで大騒ぎとなりました。
Geisha o yonde ōsawagi to narimashita.
They called in a geisha and had a rambunctious time.

The first three kanji are fairly straightforward:

芸者 (geisha)      entertainment + person
呼 (yo(bu): to call)

But 大騒ぎ jumped out at me, because I didn’t know it and because I was surprised to find the interspecies union inside 騒. Here’s what 大騒ぎ means:

大騒ぎ (ōsawagi: uproar, clamor, tumult)     large + clamor

Soon afterward, my Japanese language partner told me that his father-in-law had been involved in an 大騒ぎ. The man’s own dog had bitten his hand, sending the father-in-law to the hospital for stitches. As a result, my partner couldn’t study English all day, he said.

The Kanji for “Father-in-Law” …

“Because you took him to the hospital?” I said.

“No, because I was at his house drinking alcohol,” he said in English.

I know alcohol can numb pain, but this kind of empathy seemed to take things to new extremes.

Anyway, 大騒ぎ can clearly involve anything from a rambunctious time spent with a geisha to a dog’s biting the hand that feeds it. Whatever the context, a sense of shock always accompanies 大騒ぎ, and the shock is usually negative. This compound plays a part in the following expression:

上を下への大騒ぎ (ue o shita e no ōsawagi: to be in a state of confusion)     above + below + large + clamor

Wonderful! This phrase clearly delineates the parameters of the confusion, which extends from top to bottom!

One can’t help asking, what exactly is going on with this 騒 kanji? Thus far we’ve seen it in the following forms:

verb: 騒ぐ (sawagu: to make a fuss)
noun: 騒ぎ (sawagi: uproar, disturbance)

Here’s the same character in other parts of speech:

adjective: 騒がしい (sawagashii: noisy)
causative verb: 騒がす (sawagasu: to annoy, to cause trouble)
alternate form of causative verb: 騒がせる (sawagaseru: to annoy,
     to cause trouble)

Sample Sentence with 騒がせる …

This last form morphs yet again, popping up in the following compound:

人騒がせ (hitosawagase)     person + to annoy, cause trouble

Logically enough, this word can mean a “person that annoys or causes trouble.” But the compound also has a second, more surprising meaning: “false alarm.” Here’s that second meaning in a sample sentence:

評論家たちは、保護貿易主義について人騒がせの嘘を言っています。
Hyōronkatachi wa, hogobōeki shugi ni tsuite hitosawagase no uso o itte imasu.
Critics are just crying wolf about protectionism.

Breakdown of the Kanji …

So now, at long last, we have the answer to the quiz. When a horse and insect combine, it can create a wolf. A figurative wolf, that is. If you want a real wolf, you’ll have to go elsewhere, I’m afraid.

Did you guess “rabbit”? Well, rabbits can also have a connection to 騒. That is, I’ve made them have that connection, because I wanted to hear the following rhyme:

兎の騒ぎ (usagi no sawagi: uproar caused by rabbits)
     rabbit + uproar

I would also like to hear a rabbit-related uproar, but I might have to wait a long time for that. Then again, depressed rabbits sometimes cry out in pain, causing a ruckus:

塞ぎ込んだ兎の騒ぎ (fusagikonda usagi no sawagi: uproar caused by depressed rabbits)
     to mope (1st 2 chars.) + rabbit + uproar

The first two kanji break down as to obstruct + to move inward. Not quite the way I construe depression, but then depression does feel like a big obstruction in the flow of one’s life force. Note how similar 塞 is to 寒 (samu(i): cold).

As long as we’re discussing uproars, I’d like to present one more 騒 compound:

騒ぎ立てる (sawagitateru: to make a big fuss)
     to make a fuss + to stand

Sample Sentences with 騒ぎ立てる …

I have a feeling that if I don’t present the Verbal Logic Quiz right about now, you’ll raise a big fuss. So here it is. Enjoy.

Verbal Logic Quiz …