Mar202005

Ways to kill yourself

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the traditional Japanese pastime of offing yourself. The history of suicide in Japan is long and glorious, but before these new-fangled trains to throw yourself in front of came along, people used to cut their guts out with knives. Pleasant, I’m sure. In any case, I knew of two words for this procedure: hara-kiri and seppuku. Why two different words? Which one is correct? MY BRAIN IS GOING TO EXPLODE!

After some cursory research (read: none), I discovered this tidbit.

切腹 => seppuku
腹切り => hara-kiri

The kanji are the exact same, but the order/pronunciation is different. Both literally mean “cutting your stomach.” That doesn’t help me figure out which is more correct, but it’s a pretty morbid way to start your day.

3 comments · Written by Nathan at 10:14 am · Tags

3 Comments »

  1. what happened to this “take a picture every day” thing?

    Comment by ad@m — March 20, 2005 @ 3:42 pm

  2. whiner

    Comment by Nathan — March 20, 2005 @ 7:54 pm

  3. maybe it’s like how some words are in english like………cow and bovine or movie and film. both are refering to a “cow” but are two different terms for the same thing.

    Comment by chalupa — March 21, 2005 @ 5:50 am

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