Skip to main content

I learned a character in #japanese the other day that was defined as amount; or picture frame. 🤬

I was swearing at that--how can one word have meanings that dissimilar? How can I remember that?

But then today walking in the city I passed the Latitude nightclub. I'd seen that in other cities-- it is a good name for a nightclub, in the sense of permission to bend the rules a bit.

Or a line in the map marking distance from the equator.

🤬 How did one word get such dissimilar meanings??

😂

#japanese
Joel :void: :casio:
Joel :void: :casio:  
•

in Spanish, waters, means, well, waters...

However, "waters!" Can also mean "watch out!" Or "be careful!"

chiasm
chiasm  
•
@joel aguas? Really? Wow I had no idea...
@Joel :void: :casio:
Claus
Claus  
•
What was the character, by the way?
Kazinator
Kazinator  
•

Don't forget the third meaning/use of that character.

額=ひたい (forehead)

chiasm
chiasm  
•
@Kazinator haven't gotten to that meaning yet, but yeah!! How does that come about? 😜
@Kazinator
Tagomago
Tagomago  
•

Oh, I did not know that latitude = laxity too. Weird. Looked it up and seems to come from the original meaning of “latus” in Latin, that is “breadth”, “width”. Hence the geography meaning and also the figurative meaning of scope to do something, in English. Not in Spanish, tho. Apparently it’s a French use that got passed to English.

Idk about the Japanese (or CJK) reasoning, if any. Like, there seems to be too much polysemy for symbols that were crafted to represent ideas, not sounds?

chiasm
chiasm  
•

@tagomago ah, cool! The sense of breadth connecting the two meanings is fun to know.

But yeah, Japanese etymology must be seriously challenging. 😆

@Tagomago
⇧