Page:Elementary Chinese - San Tzu Ching (1900).djvu/74

 Tê is composed of the double-man radical, with a phonetic. It seems to have originally meant a dry measure holding about a pint. It was used for 得 tê to get, to attain; and it is just possible that from the sense of attainment, achievement, it came to mean the exemplification of virtue in good works. [Its phonetic is a corruption of 直 chih upright and 心 hsin heart, and is explained by "the external is obtained from others, the internal from oneself."]

Shuo is composed of 言 yen words as radical, and 兌 tui which originally meant to speak, and now means to weigh, as phonetic. Its earliest meaning was to expound; now it is the common colloquial word for speak. Also read and yüeh; see.

Jen see.

I see.

Tso is composed of 人 jen man as radical, and 乍 cha which originally meant to stop, and now means suddenly, etc. It covers all kinds of doing and making, even to writing a book (lines, ). [The Peking dialect, here as elsewhere, fails to exhibit the true phonetic. Cha should be tsa.]

Chung see.

Yung is composed of 庚 kêng to change, as phonetic, with 用 yung to use, as radical, which in turn was composed of 卜 pu to divine and 中 chung the middle. "Get your middle," says one luminary of the 1st cent. A.D., a not unworthy prototype of the famous Mrs. Glasse, "and then you can use it." It originally