| Change log entry 40823 | |
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| Processed by: | ycandau (2012-04-12 22:02:29 UTC) |
| Comment: |
<< review queue entry 39451 - submitted by 'fengli' >> Based on a discussion with an (educated) shop owner here in Taiwan about their menu, I am re-submitting this. In short, I was told the following: "Writing 炭 is wrong. You can even tell that its wrong because the version with 石 indicates the meaning of cooking with stone. I went for a walk last week around our neighborhood to look at all the shops to see how they write it, and I was not able to find one example of 炭烤 at all. I am concluding that cc-cedict and Pleco's "GF" dictionary is wrong on this. Photos from the shops around my house: https://plus.google.com/photos/104903756478458866808/albums/5719228486911636657 I am not sure of a way to determine the correct history of this character, however if I had to guess, I actually think what has happened is this is just the traditional form of the same character, and in china they have "re-purposed" the 碳 version to mean something else. As for the actual meaning of this character and how I would translate it appears to have the following meanings: 1) When used as part of name of a shop, the tables will have an inbuilt stove with heated coal inside. 2) When used with reference to a specific dish it means the meat will have grill marks/lines on it. 3) When used with reference to a drink it means roasted. Editor: 碳 is carbon. A chemical element. Fact is, "educated" shopkeepers are prone to popular etymology. It is unfortunate that because coal is a "stone", many people think that it is written with the stone radical. Fact is, 碳 is not a trad char vs 炭 a simp. Fact is, PRC would never "re-purpose" a char, that's not how it works. Fact is, 碳 is a char that has been invented for the chemical element, as is the case for all other elements. It corresponds to a notion that did not exist in Chinese (except gold, silver, etc). |
| Diff: |
# - 碳 碳 [tan4] /carbon (chemistry)/ # + 碳 碳 [tan4] /carbon (chemistry)/char grilled (Taiwan)/ |