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+--- Thread: Evening... Eventide... wtf? (/thread-3307.html)
Evening... Eventide... wtf? - Cinnamon - 2009-06-16
Okay, so yes, I'm going back over kanji 109[夕: evening] and 110[汐: eventide], and I just realized I have no idea what eventide means. I check the dictionary and it tells me that eventide is the middle age word for evening.... That means that they mean the same thing? How do I distinguish evening from eventide in my head?
I need some help on distinguishing these two words. Please don't go, "Just differentiate using the Kanji." because that's not going to help me at all. I'm going English > Kanji, not Kanji > English and I haven't been confused thus far, so I guess it's working.
How did you guys keep evening from eventide?
Evening... Eventide... wtf? - kanjiwarrior - 2009-06-16
I though of 汐 as "Evening Tide" and used that in my story, because I didn't know what Eventide was either. So it was "water in the evening". As for 夕 my story revolved around the kanji being a pictograph for the moon. So the stories were really different.
Evening... Eventide... wtf? - vosmiura - 2009-06-16
Both 潮 and 汐 mean "tide" in Japanese. "eventide" is just "evening tide". If you think of it that way, there's no mixing with just "evening".
Just think of them as opposites; "morning tide" and "evening tide".
Evening... Eventide... wtf? - Aijin - 2009-06-16
The author probably thought that 'eventide' actually meant to tides at evening, rather than simply meaning the time period of evening in Middle English.
汐 refers to night tides, which is why it's the character for 'evening' with the radical for water. Should be easy to remember when you think of it literally link that
Think of the words 潮汐, and 汐干狩り (I dunno if there's a direct English translation for this. Basically we use it to describe when you gather shells once the tide is low in the evening).Honestly those are the only two terms I can think of off the top of my head that even use that character...and neither are common words at all. It's used in Mandarin more, but in Japanese that kanji is pretty rare. Unless there's more words that I just can't remember at the moment ... but at the most I doubt there's more than a handful of words with that kanji!
Evening... Eventide... wtf? - drivers99 - 2009-06-18
汐干狩り rikaichan lookup gives "shell collecting (at low tide); clamming"
I just looked it up in Nelson's original/classic kanji dictionary (NELSON The Original Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary Classic Edition by Andrew N. Newson) (which only lists words that START with a given character) and it has the same word as above... but when I type it in the IME doesn't have that word. Nelson's definition is "low-tide shell gathering." Nelson's also has 汐焼け which means "tanned by salt air." But when I type it in, the IME changes the first character to tide instead of eventide, and rikaichan only recognizes that word if you put "tide" as the first character, and not the "eventide" version above.
Not sure what to make of all that. I guess Nelson's classic edition is really old-fashioned?
Evening... Eventide... wtf? - markal - 2009-06-18
I see this as a very literal story differentiation. *Eventide* is WATER that comes up/goes out in the EVENING. Of course, you need a good story for *Evening* first so that when you hit *Eventide* the WATER-EVENING story kicks in by itself.
Evening... Eventide... wtf? - Aijin - 2009-06-18
Oh! I had forgotten about that one, thanks for reminding me. I only see 潮焼け usually, but I have seen it written as 汐焼け before, maybe once or twice in my entire life. Both 潮 and 汐 can be read as しお, and both are correct ways of writing the word but 潮焼け is definitely more common.
I would personally use a different one depending on what you're trying to say. If you're just talking about being tanned by salt air, then use 潮焼け, as it places more emphasis on the salt water in my mind. Using 汐焼け places more emphasis on the evening, evokes more images of the night itself, and to me is a bit more romantic.
When you can write a single word with multiple characters, usually it helps to know not only the meaning of the characters themselves, but what other words they are used in, as there will be associations in the reader's mind. For example, あおい can be written either 青い or 蒼い, and while it's the same word, the different characters give it a different feel. 青い is more light, gentle, youthful, evokes more feelings of nature and the environment, where as 蒼い is gritty, has a dense, rather dark atmosphere to it.
I read a novel when I was a young teen actually, where the chapters from the point of view of a child used 青い、as that reflected that youthful, innocent state of mind, where as when the chapter was done through the eyes of that same character as an adult, the writer only used 蒼い, as it expressed that change in innocence, that denseness and complexity that comes with age, and the grittiness that stains the things we once regarded with simple joy.
If you get into Japanese literature keep your eyes out for how a writer will manipulate a single word to express different things by simply changing how it's written.
Evening... Eventide... wtf? - Cinnamon - 2009-06-20
In my SRS I have 'During the evening tide...' so I guess that's okay.
Thanks guys. I kind of just wish Heisig had just said evening tide, though, if that's what he meant. >.>;
Evening... Eventide... wtf? - Umikuma - 2009-06-20
Heisig says: In the next lesson we will meet the character for morning-tide and the element for drops of water. Meantime we have a perfect blend of picture and idea in this kanji to play on the English word for nightfall, eventide: drops of water inching their way up the shore in the evening.
IOW it's a play on words. He mentions morning-tide in contrast and blatently says he's punning on the word eventide to get the keyword for this kanji. Write it even-tide if you prefer. I really think that what he wrote is clear enough.