Musically and astronomically, we know about the dark side of the moon. But what about the dark side of the sky—or rather, the dark side of the “sky” kanji, 空? As I mentioned in my last blog (when discussing 空々しい　(sorazorashii: false, hypocritical) and 空手形 (karategata: bad check; empty promise)), 空 has a seamy side. This kanji often means “fake” or “sham.”

Take, for example, these words:

空名 (kūmei: empty name; false reputation)             fake + name

空夢 (sorayume: fabricated dream)                          fake + dream

A lie about a dream?! Who lies about their dreams?!

空相場 (kūsōba: fictitious transaction)          fake + market price
                                                                                      (last 2 chars.)

For a Further Breakdown …

空景気 (karageiki: false or superficial prosperity)    fake + scenery                                                                                                + spirit

On Changing the Air …

Daydreams and Pipe Dreams

Making stuff up isn’t always a bad thing! Without inventiveness, we wouldn’t have fiction or the light bulbs to help us read that fiction. In the following words, 空 means “unreality,” giving off the sense of an inventor’s dreaminess or visionary tendencies:

空想 (kūsō: daydream; fantasy; fancy; vision)          unreality + idea

絵空事 (esoragoto: fabrication, pipe dream)        picture + unreality                                                                                               + thing

Esoragoto conveys the sense of a beautiful but unreal scene, such as a pretty picture that looks better than the actual world.

空似 (sorani: accidental resemblance)         unreality + to resemble

Oddly, both the compound 空似 and the phrase 他人の空似 (tanin no sorani) mean “accidental resemblance.” The compound 他人 (tanin) means “stranger” and breaks down as other + person.

空即是色 (kūsokuzeshiki: the illusion of the reality of matter)
                                             unreality + namely + just so + color

What’s going on with this breakdown?! Is it all an illusion that this assortment of definitions adds up to something real?!

If you switch the first and last characters in 空即是色, you produce a new compound:

色即是空 (shikisokuzekū: Matter is void; All is vanity)          
                                              color + namely + just so + unreality

We seem to have swum into deep philosophical waters! I would recommend heading for shore right about now, except for one thing. We’ve also arrived at another significant meaning of 空: “vanity,” by which I don’t mean primping and preening but rather the sense that something is utterly devoid of meaning.

Vanity Fair

I wouldn’t go so far as to say “All is in vain,” but several Japanese expressions certainly do. Muna(shii), another kun-yomi of 空, means “empty, vain, futile.”

On Being Dead and Lifeless …

Even with the yomi KŪ, kara, and sora, many 空 compounds convey that sense.

For Holes in the Story …

I believe “futile”—or “empty,” as in “empty of meaning”—must be the sense of 空 in this compound:

空恥ずかしい (sorahazukashii: feeling ashamed, embarrassed, or
bashful without knowing why)                         futile, empty + shame

I’ve loved this word for a long time without understanding the reason for my affection. (Does Japanese have a term for “loving without knowing why”?) I particularly love how the “shame” kanji 恥 breaks down as “ear” (耳) + “heart” (心)!

More on the Ear Here …

Other terms about futility are quite a bit bleaker. In fact, it seems that a bunch of depressives coined the following expressions!

空疎 (kūso: vain; groundless; futile)                    futile + to alienate

空しく日を送る (munashiku hi o okuru: to spend days in vain)
                                                                     futile + day + to send

Thanks to the last kanji, 送, the phrase refers to “sending” the days, rather than “spending” them.

空に帰する (kūniki suru: to come to naught)      futile + to return

If it’s futile to go back and futile to go forward, then I suppose the trip has come to naught.

空費 (kūhi: wastefulness)                                      futile + expense

空頼み (soradanomi: vain hope)                                vain + request

Because the definition of soradanomi is “vain hope,” it took me a moment to recognize 頼, which normally makes itself known as tano(mu), “to request.” Here, a noun form, tanomi, has become danomi after undergoing voicing. In other words, 頼 is practically traveling incognito.

空振り (karaburi: striking (at something) and missing; in vain)
                                                                                futile + to swing

空発 (kūhatsu: explosion without effect; wasted bullets)           futile                                                                                    + to discharge

We’ve all heard that violence is pointless. The last compound makes it clear that ineffective violence is even more pointless!

And on that cheery note, it’s time to have fun with today’s Verbal Logic Quizzes. Just click on the red link, and it’ll whisk you away to the place where that sort of thing happens.

For the Verbal Logic Quizzes …