Talk:亡

Origin of character

Entry needs an explanation of the origin of the character (why it's drawn the way it is). 69.81.129.50 18:32, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

RFV discussion: January 2020–September 2021

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亡

Rfv-sense: "poor". Pinging @Dine2016 who added it. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:12, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Justinrleung: I think we can safely remove this definition or at least put it as a subitem under the first, namely alt form of 無／无 (wú, “to not have; to lack; to not be; no; none; etc.”). The gloss "poor" seems to be based on a single commentary in the 毛詩／毛诗 (Máoshī), under the 4th verse of 《邶風·谷風》:

何有何亡，黽勉求之。 [Pre-Classical Chinese, trad.]

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何有何亡，黾勉求之。 [Pre-Classical Chinese, simp.]

From: The Classic of Poetry, c. 11^th – 7^th centuries BCE, translated based on James Legge's version

Hé yǒu hé wú, mǐn miǎn qiú zhī. [Pinyin]

Whether we had plenty or not,
I exerted myself to be getting.

The Mao annotation (傳, pages 71–72, scanned copy) reads: 「有」謂富也；「亡」謂貧也。 I suspect this is where the spurious sense "poor" came from.

However I don't think the Mao annotation were meant to be definition-giving. It simply explains the words' connotation in the particular context of the poem rather than giving an alternative gloss of the words. The meaning "poor", etc. is not a separate sense; it is already covered under the first sense. Zheng Xuan's parallel annotation (箋) did so in a slightly different manner, and so did the 正義 (sub-annotation) by Tang-era scholars. --Frigoris (talk) 20:22, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• RFV failed. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:35, 15 September 2021 (UTC)