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When my husband read the Sunday New York Times this week, he came upon some kanji in a photo and decided to give me a quiz. Covering all the surrounding English, he said, “You don’t get any context. See if you can read this.” Here’s what it said:
大企業の首切りを許さないぞ！
My first reaction was to panic and to go blank. I don’t know why that is. I love kanji as much I love chocolate and tea, and I’ve never panicked on seeing either of those things—not once. Then again, chocolate and tea don’t require much of me, except perhaps willpower!
Once I gave myself a moment, though, things started to fall into place. I could easily recognize 切 as ki(ru), “to cut.” So what was being cut? Although I should have known 首 in an instant, it took me more like five instants to make sense of 首切り. Of course! I love this compound; 首 is “neck,” and 首切り (kubikiri: neck + to cut) is a wonderfully graphic (if gruesome) way of referring to firing employees.
And what about the other compounds? I knew 大 (DAI, TAI, ō(kii)) as “big” and 業 (GYŌ) as “business.” But 企 had me stuck.
I also didn’t know 許, though I said I thought it had to do with forgiveness or permission. I vaguely remembered it from a JPod lesson about a young man’s asking a woman’s father for permission to marry her.
Putting it all together, including the emphatic ぞ at the end, I said it had to be something like, “We won’t forgive layoffs by big companies!” My husband (who gives me too much credit) was jubilant, because that’s exactly what the article was about.
I, on the other hand, focused on what I didn’t know: 企 and 許. What could they mean? The first combined “person” (人) and “to stop” (止), whereas the second joined “to speak” or “word” (言) with “noon” (午). Huh?!
A Glance at 企
As it turns out, 企 isn’t too important in the big realm of kanji. It shows up in just a smattering of words. Here are its vitals:
企 (KI, kuwada(teru): project, plan; to attempt, design, undertake)
Most significantly, 企 helps to form this compound, which appeared in the photo as part of a longer word:
企業 (kigyō: enterprise, undertaking; corporation; business)
project + business
Put 大 in front (as a prefix, it means “great” and has the yomi of DAI), and voila:
大企業 (daikigyō: big corporation) big + project + business
Putting it all together, here’s what the sentence in the photo said:
大企業の首切りを許さないぞ！
Daikigyō no kubikiri o yurusanaizo!
We will not allow layoffs by large corporations!
Asking for Permission and Forgiveness
Do you think of permission and forgiveness as falling into the same category? It feels to me as if they’re far apart in time. In fact, in some ways they’re opposites. If I had sought your permission in the first place, I wouldn’t need to beg your forgiveness now. Forgiveness happens after the fact, and permission precedes.
But in Japanese, the same kanji can express both concepts:
許 (KYO, yuru(su): to permit, forgive)
“To permit” is the original meaning. “To forgive” came later.
The first thing to notice about this kanji is that it factors twice into a fun tongue twister. More on that at the link.
A second point of interest: yuru(su) contains the same vowel in every syllable, which makes this word easier to remember.
A third thing to notice is that 許 shows up in some useful phrases:
時間の許す限り(jikan no yurusu kagiri: as long as time permits)
時間 (jikan: time) hour + interval
限り (kagiri: limit)そればかりはお許しください。
Sore bakari wa oyurushi kudasai.
Please let me be excused from that.Here ばかり (bakari) means “I will do almost anything but, please, not that!”
過失を許す (kashitsu o yurusu: to forgive (a person) for faults)
過失 (kashitsu: error, fault, mistake) error + mistake
On that note, you might enjoy some quotations about forgiveness. If not, please forgive me!
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Time for your Verbal Logic Quiz.
