Hi!

I was looking at the study page of 菌 (germ): http://kanji.koohii.com/study.php?framenum=917

There the keyword appears as "germ (wheat)". As "germ" have more than one meaning, I thought that this description was meaning germ as in "a bud, offshoot, or seed"... but looking up the meaning at wwwjdic, it reads "germ; fungus; bacteria", and almost all compounds related to bacteria, bacillus, etc.

So, my question is: why "wheat" appears right after the keyword "germ"?

That's an interesting point. According to EDICT and other sources the kanji for wheatgerm is 幼芽 (ようが) whereas 菌 translates as "bacteria" or "bacterium" in two Japanese online translation services in addition to the EDICT definitions you mentioned.

However, the bushu of 菌 is 艸 and the other radical is 禾, both suggesting plants/cereals, so perhaps "wheatgerm" is an example of one of the "original" meanings that Heisig is fond of.

My copy of RTK has "germ" as the keyword and only mentions wheat as being one of the primitives. The wheat part seems to have been added by the web site builders.

This character is most often used to describe the bad kind of germ; bacteria and the like.

JimmySeal Wrote:My copy of RTK has "germ" as the keyword and only mentions wheat as being one of the primitives. The wheat part seems to have been added by the web site builders.

そうか。 As my copy of RTK1 is 70 miles away at the moment, I couldn't check the actual book. My apologies to Heisig-sensei ^_^

[ファブリス]

Pangolin Wrote:However, the bushu of 菌 is 艸 and the other radical is 禾, both suggesting plants/cereals, so perhaps "wheatgerm" is an example of one of the "original" meanings that Heisig is fond of.

I think you're right though. Looks like "germ (wheat)" is a 3rd edition keyword.

Well would you mind awfully telling us how the conclusion was reached that 菌's keyword is "germ (wheat)?"

[ファブリス]

Quote:Well would you mind awfully telling us how the conclusion was reached that 菌's keyword is "germ (wheat)?"

The keywords for RTK I were populated in the database with the help of the Heisig Kanji Index from 'Zigr'. Zigr entered the keywords from his version of RTK which is 3rd edition. Last year I forwarded to him a bunch of corrections found by myself and other users of the site, as you can see at the bottom of that page. And as you can see here there are still some keywords from 3rd edition.

This will be corrected, though it won't help much as it will show up as "germ (wheat) (3rd edition) / germ (4th edition)" in the Study area.

Cool, I didn't notice the 1.0.9 corrections on Zigr's index, I'll check them as well when I update the database.

According to Zhongwen it means mushroom, fungus or bacteria. chineseetymology.com gives the same meanings (fungi, mushrooms, bacteria), but also bamboo shoot. And according to kanjinetworks.com it means fungus or germ as a meaning derived from the earlier meaning of fungus. There is no mention of it ever having meant wheat on any of these sites.

A scan through EDICT seemed to show that the only food-related term involving 菌 is a few yeast-related words, and aside from that, all the rest are bacteria and the like. As far as I can tell, the character has nothing to do with wheat, aside from containing Heisig's wheat primitive.

Any word on this getting fixed? Every time I review this kanji, I can't miss it because the "germ(wheat)" reminds me that the kanji has "wheat" in it. I have looked this up in several online and hard copy Japanese dictionaries. Here is goo's definition for germ:
germ
n. 胚(はい)種, 幼芽; 細菌, 病原菌; 芽ばえ, 兆し, 根源 (the ～ of).
in germ　未発達（状態）で.
vi. 発芽する
germ cell　【生物】生殖細胞.
germ layer　【生物】胚葉.
germ plasm　【生物】生殖（細胞）質; ((集合的)) （一組織体の）生殖細胞.
germ warfare　細菌戦.

In the Genius Japanese/English dictionary it is similar. 幼芽(ようが） seems to be the closest to the keyword meaning and it is made up of "infancy (1378)" and "bud (1905)". Chinese compounds for this kanji all point to the same "bacteria/fungus" definition. Nothing I found points to wheatgerm. I am willing to bet money on the fact that "germ (wheat)" as a keyword, 3rd edition or otherwise, was just an error plain and simple.

I have asked my Japanese Tutor to look it up in her gigantic native speaker kanji dictionary too. As soon as she gets back to me I will make an edit.

UPDATE: My teacher got back to me and she looked up 菌 in her encyclopedia sized kanji dictionary (the thing is huge with super small font) and said that it has only ever had the meaning of fungus, bacteria, and the like.

ファブリス Wrote:

Pangolin Wrote:However, the bushu of 菌 is 艸 and the other radical is 禾, both suggesting plants/cereals, so perhaps "wheatgerm" is an example of one of the "original" meanings that Heisig is fond of.

I think you're right though. Looks like "germ (wheat)" is a 3rd edition keyword.

No, this mistake is not from RTK, 3rd. The keyword is simply GERM. So this might be useful for you because the error came from outside RTK.

Just came to this again, and I hate to beat a dead horse, but any chance it could get fixed? I am sure the difference in nuance isn't that important but it is akin to putting "(chance)" after "second" [Frame 899].

If you have FireFox, install the Substitute keywords script and remove the obnoxious part. I use it to wheat out, I mean weed out, all the 3rd ed. keywords. See this post.

[ファブリス]

dilandau23 Wrote:Just came to this again, and I hate to beat a dead horse, but any chance it could get fixed?

Fixed now. I don't know why I didn't fix it when it was first mentioned. I guess I was trying to remain consistent with the display of 3rd/4th edition keywords. Anyway, in this particular case I see no point in keeping the 3rd edition keyword, if it ever was "germ (wheat)".

ファブリス Wrote:I don't know why I didn't fix it when it was first mentioned. I guess I was trying to remain consistent with the display of 3rd/4th edition keywords. Anyway, in this particular case I see no point in keeping the 3rd edition keyword, if it ever was "germ (wheat)".

It wasn't:

KANJI Wrote:No, this mistake is not from RTK, 3rd. The keyword is simply GERM.

Hence why it's upsetting so many people.

I'm sorry for all the pain I've caused.

I have no idea why I typed "germ (wheat)" into the index file that seeded this site. The index file has read "germ (wheat)" from my very first checkin in December 2004. I just checked my RTK1 3rd edition, and the book says "germ" not "germ (wheat)". So I can only guess that I caught a glimpse of the "...wheat" primitives list and subconsciously typed it.

Removing "wheat" from the index file has been in my to-do list since March 2007; I've put off the task for far too long.

Edit:
I updated the index file, removing "(wheat)".

[ファブリス]

No problem, ziggr. And thanks again for the keyword list.

ps:

Quote:Removing "wheat" from the index file has been in my to-do list since March 2007; I've put off the task for far too long.

Haha, I see I'm not alone in postponing and then forgetting about it

pps:
Wow, there's a bunch of corrections in your list. I will check them out later. I'm not sure if I should remove the 3rd edition keywords on this site yet, though. Thankfully there are not many.

Perhaps instead of removing them you could give them their own field in the database. Then people could select which edition they have and (where there has been a change between versions) only see the one relevant to their book.
I only mention this because I know there are a few kanji which when I review and see that there are two keywords, it limits the possible answers in my head. By this I mean just having two keywords, not what they say helps me somehow...