Meaning
Some academics have criticised the usage of the word radical because of its supposed ambiguity. At one time radical referred to the semantic component of a Chinese character, because most (but not all) dictionary section headers are closely linked with the meaning of the characters listed under them. There is a widespread perception that the character elements used as section headers are always, by definition, semantic in their role, but this is not always the case. For example, 木 ("tree"), a common character element with semantic purpose in many characters, is actually phonetic in the character 沐 ("bathe", "wash"), and the character's meaning-bearing radical is the left-hand element, 氵, "water". Another common misunderstanding is that radical means any component of a character. But this is inconsistent with all of its various historical uses.
Read more about this topic: Radical (Chinese Character)
Famous quotes containing the word meaning:
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“Out in Hollywood, where the streets are paved with Goldwyn, the word “sophisticate” means, very simply, “obscene.” A sophisticated story is a dirty story. Some of that meaning was wafted eastward and got itself mixed up into the present definition. So that a “sophisticate” means: one who dwells in a tower made of a DuPont substitute for ivory and holds a glass of flat champagne in one hand and an album of dirty post cards in the other.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)