玉子

eeky · 24 Mar 2015

The story I am reading features a magical golden egg, which is normally written as 卵. However, in one place only, in the phrase 玉子と目玉, it is written 玉子, which I don't believe I have ever seen before. What is the likely reason for this? Could it be just to create a visual repetition of the character 玉?

Mike Cash · 24 Mar 2015

Emphasizing the shared quality of roundness?

It isn't unusual to write 玉子 like that. Notice that it was a 変換 option?

nekojita · 24 Mar 2015

Is the one place it is used somewhere unusual or separate from the rest? I've seen both used but generally not mixed together.

Bit of interesting discussion (in Japanese) here:
意外と知らない日本語…「卵」と「玉子」の違いを知っておこう - NAVER まとめ

undrentide · 24 Mar 2015

I thought that 玉子 was a 大和言葉 and later the kanji 卵 wa applied, but I was wrong. I did not know that 玉子 is a comparativly new word!
卵・玉子（たまご） - 語源由来辞典

Toritoribe · 25 Mar 2015

As in the page nekojita-san linked, 玉子 refers to bird's eggs as a food such like hen's eggs or quail's eggs, whereas 卵 is eggs in general. Thus, 鶏の卵 is valid but 恐竜の玉子の化石 is not. (I remember my wife proudly asked if I knew the difference between 卵 and 玉子 just the other day. She seemed to gain the knowledge from a TV show or something.)

Mike Cash · 25 Mar 2015

Toritoribe said:
As in the page nekojita-san linked, 玉子 refers to bird's eggs as a food such like hen's eggs or quail's eggs, whereas 卵 is eggs in general. Thus, 鶏の卵 is valid but 恐竜の玉子の化石 is not. (I remember my wife proudly asked if I knew the difference between 卵 and 玉子 just the other day. She seemed to gain the knowledge from a TV show or something.)

My wife did the same thing to me recently, asking if I knew which hiragana aren't used on license plates. I promptly told her which ones and the reasons why. She seemed disappointed and wanted to know how I knew. I told her I had read it in a book and that I had told her at least a couple of years ago.

eeky · 25 Mar 2015

nekojita said:
Is the one place it is used somewhere unusual or separate from the rest?

It's a chapter title ... but ...

Toritoribe said:
As in the page nekojita-san linked, 玉子 refers to bird's eggs as a food such like hen's eggs or quail's eggs, whereas 卵 is eggs in general.

... I have only just started the chapter, and, from the above, it seems that 玉子 may not after all refer to the golden egg elsewhere called 卵, but may refer to something else. I will have to read it to find out.

WonkoTheSane · 25 Mar 2015

Mike Cash said:
My wife did the same thing to me recently, asking if I knew which hiragana aren't used on license plates. I promptly told her which ones and the reasons why. She seemed disappointed and wanted to know how I knew. I told her I had read it in a book and that I had told her at least a couple of years ago.

I did some googling and from what I found し and へ are not used, but I can't find why. Mind sharing?

Mike Cash · 25 Mar 2015

WonkoTheSane said:
I did some googling and from what I found し and へ are not used, but I can't find why. Mind sharing?

死
屁

Toritoribe · 25 Mar 2015

WonkoTheSane said:
I did some googling and from what I found し and へ are not used, but I can't find why. Mind sharing?

お and ん are not used, either. Wikipedia has the explanation about the reason.
日本のナンバープレート - Wikipedia

WonkoTheSane · 25 Mar 2015

Sadly still out of my reading ability. Later at home I'll try using chrome to see if the translation is useful.

Thank you, though.

WonkoTheSane · 25 Mar 2015

Mike Cash said:
死
屁

It occurred to me if I quoted I could copy and paste so I could try to figure this out before I went home. I learned two new kanji, I'm sure my teacher would be awfully proud...

Now, for お would the reason be 尾 and that would be used colloquially for rear end in an impolite manner, or possibly 苧?

Thank you!

Toritoribe · 25 Mar 2015

お could be misread as あ, す or む.
ん is hard to pronounce as a single mora.

WonkoTheSane · 25 Mar 2015

Toritoribe said:
お could be misread as あ, す or む.
ん is hard to pronounce as a single mora.

Thank you!

玉子

eeky

先輩

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

nekojita

先輩

undrentide

Japa'n vagyok

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

eeky

先輩

WonkoTheSane

先輩

Mike Cash

骨も命も皆此の土地に埋めよう

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

WonkoTheSane

先輩

WonkoTheSane

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

WonkoTheSane

先輩

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