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If someone planned to serve you the following, how would you respond?

粗煮 (arani: dish consisting of bony fish parts boiled in soy sauce)
     coarse + to boil

Blech! Not one part of that sounds good to me. Bony fish parts and hot soy sauce do the opposite of whetting my appetite.

I would have guessed that you’d make this dish only if the fridge were barren, save for a few bottled sauces and a moldy onion growing new parts. But it’s entirely possible that 粗煮 is a delicacy! As it turns out, the answer isn’t so clear-cut; see the link for more on that.

Native Takes on the Situation …

From the following definitions of the first kanji, you can certainly see how this could be food of the last resort:

粗 (ara)

1. leftovers (after filleting a fish)
2. rice chaff (i.e., worthless husks of grains)
3. flaw (especially of a person)
4. a prefix meaning “rough; roughly”
5. crude; raw; natural; wild

You get all that just when the yomi is ara. And there are two more yomi. Here’s the full story on this kanji:
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I wonder if you know how to say the following things in Japanese:

He’s free with his money.
She has a rough way of talking.
My boss is a slave driver.

No? How have you been getting by so far? Don’t you need the third sentence, in particular?

Two More Terms You Can’t Live Without …

Even though these English sentences seem to have nothing in common, their Japanese translations share some useful vocabulary. All three feature the kanji we’ve been examining for the past two weeks:

荒 (KŌ, ara(i), ara-, a(reru), a(rasu), -a(rashi): rough, crude, natural, wild)

In fact, in every sentence, 荒 shows up in the following word:

荒い (arai: rough, rude, wild)

Furthermore, all the sentences contain a kanji that’s probably familiar to you:

使 (tsuka(u): to use)

But you may not know its suffix form:
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If you saw the following, what would you think the word meant?

山荒 (yamaarashi)     mountain + rough

The kanji 荒 (KŌ, ara(i), ara-, a(reru), a(rasu), -a(rashi): rough, crude, natural, wild) contains the “grass” radical 艹, so maybe this is a type of plant that grows on mountains.

Then again, the roughness could describe the mountain itself—perhaps the condition of an eroded slope. (By the way, “erosion” is a great word: 水食, suishoku: erosion, water + to eat. Erosion is what happens when water “eats” a slope!)

Mountain + rough could also refer to the unpolished manner of a country bumpkin living on an isolated mountain.

But no, 山荒 means “porcupine”! (Actually, according to Wikipedia, it’s a supernatural sort of porcupine!)

Do porcupines tend to live on mountains? If I knew nothing about kanji and looked at the spiky lines of 山 and 荒, I might indeed spot the pictograph of a porcupine. In fact, 山 looks more like a porcupine than like a mountain!
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If I saw the following word out of context, I would puzzle over the breakdown:

大荒れ (ōare: great storm)     big + being wild

Sample Sentence with 大荒れ …

I would wonder, exactly who or what is big and being wild? An untamed horse or a pro wrestler would come to mind. The breakdown even sounds illicit, like something in an ad for erotic services (not that I read those). But in this case, 荒 describes the weather.

From the following compounds and their breakdowns, you might conclude that 荒 (KŌ, ara(i), ara-, a(reru), a(rasu), -a(rashi): rough, crude, natural, wild) generally refers to a force that whips natural elements into a state of frenzy:

荒天 (kōten: stormy weather)     wild + skies
荒波 (aranami: wild waves or stormy seas)     rough + waves

You may know 波 from 津波 (tsunami: harbor + wave).

荒れ狂う風 (arekuruu kaze: raging wind)
     being wild + crazy + wind

That’s sometimes true, but not always. In the haiku that Alberto Sanz has chosen for the June page of his haiku calendar, 荒 describes a woven mat.

Alberto has assembled a powerful, shocking, and moving explanation of a haiku that might seem placid and lacking in depth; I urge you to read his PDF.
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To “strong-arm” someone, we use threats or intimidation to coerce that person into doing what we want. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say “we.” I like inclusiveness, but I’m not sure “we” serves me too well here. (I also like to be a bit more discreet about my use of threats and intimidation.)

Turns out, the Japanese also “strong-arm” people to get their way. That is, the kanji for “threaten, coerce, intimidate” contains a strong arm, or several:

脅 (KYŌ, odo(su), odo(kasu), obiya(kasu): to intimidate, threaten, coerce)

Although 力 (RYOKU, chikara) now means “power,” it originally represented a bulging bicep. Henshall says that 劦 in 脅 means “strong arm” or “strength.” The tripling of 力 is for emphasis, indicating great force or pressure. (Actually, Henshall didn’t say “tripling.” He said “trebling,” bringing to mind the very unthreatening treble clef.) Meanwhile, 月 means “flesh.” So 脅 originally referred to putting great pressure on someone’s body. Now, the associated figurative meaning of “to threaten, coerce” has taken over entirely.

It may seem completely logical that this configuration of components would have a forceful meaning, but just think back to last week, when we saw that 脇 (waki) meant “side.” Same components, same radical, but a vastly different result.

Even when you pile three pumped-up arms on top of a flesh radical, you don’t necessarily get just one result. In fact, 脅 has three types of meanings:

1. to intimidate, threaten, menace
2. to jeopardize, endanger, imperil
3. to startle, surprise

I have lots of sample sentences to share, in hopes of illuminating these meanings. So where shall we start—by intimidating, endangering, or startling others? I’ll take back what I said about being discreet! I’m suddenly enjoying this sadistic power trip!
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Let’s say you encountered this sentence:

新聞はあなたの脇にあります。

You likely know 新聞 as shinbun (newspaper, new + hearsay), so you could read the whole sentence, except perhaps for one troublesome character smack-dab in the center. Trying to work around it, you would have this:

Shinbun wa anata no ___ ni arimasu.

The newspaper is in your … driveway? Birdcage? Thoughts?

Looking at the components of 脇 might help. The “flesh” radical, 月, almost always tells us that we’re talking about the body. So the newspaper is somewhere in your body?!

When Does the 月 Component Not Mean “Flesh”? …

As for 力, that means “power.” In fact, it was originally a pictograph of a bulging bicep. So we have a body with three biceps!
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If you asked me to refer in Japanese to four species of Antarctic penguins, I might try to squeeze ペンギン (pengin: penguin), 4種類 (yon shurui: four kinds), and いる (iru: to exist) into a sentence. In the penguin sign I’ve mentioned (yes, we’re still talking about it!), ペンギン and 4種類 certainly appear. But instead of いる, we find this:

生息する (seisoku suru: to inhabit, live)     life + to live

Here’s the relevant text again:

南極に生息する4種類のペンギン
Nankyoku ni seisoku suru yon shurui no pengin
four Antarctic penguin species
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Two weeks ago, I introduced the following sentence:

ペンギンと背比べ！南極に生息する4種類のペンギンの脇に立ち、あなたの身長と比較してみて下さい。
Pengin to seikurabe! Nankyoku ni seisoku suru 4 shurui no pengin
no waki ni tachi, anata no shinchō to hikaku shite mite kudasai.
Stand beside the four Antarctic penguin species and see how tall they are compared to you!

Breakdown of the Kanji …

At first glance, it might seem as if this text is about penguins, and of course they play a vital role. But the more I look at it, the more I see that it’s full of body parts!

See how many components or whole kanji you can spot that relate in some way to bodies or their functions. I’ll post the original sign again to block your view of the answers, which come immediately afterward.
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It’s May 1. So what does that mean for us? Well, it’s a holiday in many parts of the world, but not for me, so that definitely wasn’t on my mind. Wrong answer!

May 1 is also my husband’s birthday. Happy birthday! This year, after my birthday rolls around, we’ll both have prime numbers as our ages. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. I also think it’s highly insignificant in the big scheme of things (e.g., the study of Japanese), so forget that answer, too.

The “proper” answer is that it’s time for the May page of Alberto Sanz’s beautiful haiku calendar:

The haiku again:
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First off, there’s some housekeeping to attend to; I promised that today I would provide answers to the most recent contest and make the winners famous. The top three contestants did a great job. They also happened to be the only contestants! Congratulations to the following people:

Devon Bartlett
Naveh Mazenko
Alberto Sanz (again!)

You’ll find answers and explanations at the link.

Famous Sayings: Answers and Explanations …

These three people deserve credit not only for terrific research but also for feeling motivated enough to do extra work for no material gains. That is, they acted in the following way:

積極的 (sekkyokuteki: assertive, positive, active, willing)
     to accumulate + to go to extremes + adjectival suffix

And being motivated is the opposite of this:

消極的 (shōkyokuteki: negative, half-hearted, passive,
unmotivated)     negative + to go to extremes + adjectival suffix

I’m so impressed that I feel like doing this:
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