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Help[Opinions] Re: Japanese models' names
in reply to a message by mitsouko
Thanks for this post, it's really interesting.
I'm curious - Chihiro 千尋 was the name used in this movie
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/
I've seen people saying it means "thousand questions" which fits what you say, I guess. Wikipedia says the meaning is "thousand fathoms." The English word "fathom" can be used as a verb sort of like inquire or question ... is that a good approximation of the translation, or is it as general as "inquire"?
Interesting:
(etymonline.com)
fathom - O.E. fæðmian "to embrace, surround, envelop;" see fathom (n.). The meaning "take soundings" is from c.1600; its figurative sense of "get to the bottom of, understand" is 1620s.
inquire - late 13c., from O.Fr. enquerre, from V.L. *inquærere, from L. in- "into" + quærere "ask, seek" (see query). Respelled 14c. on L. model, but half-Latinized enquire still persists. Related: Inquired; inquiring; inquiringly.
(wordnet)
fathom - penetrate, come to understand
inquire - ask, wonder, investigate
As an aside, I think it's amusing how the origin of fathom make it a feminine concept, while the modern definition makes it synonymous with penetrate (because of taking soundings).
Anyway, what I want to know is: What captures the meaning of Chihiro better - thousand questions being asked, or thousand questions to be asked?
I'm curious - Chihiro 千尋 was the name used in this movie
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/
I've seen people saying it means "thousand questions" which fits what you say, I guess. Wikipedia says the meaning is "thousand fathoms." The English word "fathom" can be used as a verb sort of like inquire or question ... is that a good approximation of the translation, or is it as general as "inquire"?
Interesting:
(etymonline.com)
fathom - O.E. fæðmian "to embrace, surround, envelop;" see fathom (n.). The meaning "take soundings" is from c.1600; its figurative sense of "get to the bottom of, understand" is 1620s.
inquire - late 13c., from O.Fr. enquerre, from V.L. *inquærere, from L. in- "into" + quærere "ask, seek" (see query). Respelled 14c. on L. model, but half-Latinized enquire still persists. Related: Inquired; inquiring; inquiringly.
(wordnet)
fathom - penetrate, come to understand
inquire - ask, wonder, investigate
As an aside, I think it's amusing how the origin of fathom make it a feminine concept, while the modern definition makes it synonymous with penetrate (because of taking soundings).
Anyway, what I want to know is: What captures the meaning of Chihiro better - thousand questions being asked, or thousand questions to be asked?
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You've intrigued me about this, and I looked into it a little more.
Chihiro Oide, the model for Pretty Style, writes her name 千尋, the same as Chihiro in Spirited Away.
The second character definitely has something to do with questions. It's in the word 尋ねる (tazuneru), which means "to ask, to inquire".
It must also have something to do with distance, because when I looked 千尋 (chihiro) up in the dictionary as a word, I found the meanings "1. great depth (lit: thousand fathoms); bottomless" 2. great height". Another word with the same metaphoric meaning is 万尋 (banjin) , literally "ten-thousand fathoms".
I ran 千尋 through google.co.jp, and got the result that 千尋 = 1.8288 キロメートル (1000 fathoms = 1.8288 kilometres). lol
I think "great depth" was the intended meaning for the name - I wasn't actually aware that "chihiro" is a real vocabulary word until now. I'd just seen the character 尋 in alot of names containing "hiro" so I assumed it was chosen because of the sound.
Chihiro Oide, the model for Pretty Style, writes her name 千尋, the same as Chihiro in Spirited Away.
The second character definitely has something to do with questions. It's in the word 尋ねる (tazuneru), which means "to ask, to inquire".
It must also have something to do with distance, because when I looked 千尋 (chihiro) up in the dictionary as a word, I found the meanings "1. great depth (lit: thousand fathoms); bottomless" 2. great height". Another word with the same metaphoric meaning is 万尋 (banjin) , literally "ten-thousand fathoms".
I ran 千尋 through google.co.jp, and got the result that 千尋 = 1.8288 キロメートル (1000 fathoms = 1.8288 kilometres). lol
I think "great depth" was the intended meaning for the name - I wasn't actually aware that "chihiro" is a real vocabulary word until now. I'd just seen the character 尋 in alot of names containing "hiro" so I assumed it was chosen because of the sound.
This message was edited 12/8/2010, 1:58 PM
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Aha. That makes sense. I wonder how long Chihiro has been used as a name. Maybe it was chosen for the sound at some point - a namey word that could mean something namey, even though it doesn't necessarily. Like Destiny.
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