家中 (iejū: all over the house, the whole family)
Two things strike me about this compound:
1. In 家中, the kun-yomi ie combines with the on-yomi JŪ. This suggests that after kanji arrived in Japan, the Japanese so admired the imported suffix -中 that they tacked it onto words already existing in their language. Hence, they ended up with the hybrid creations iejū and heyajū.
2. It seems that since 家中 has two domestic meanings, confusion could ensue. “The fire is raging all over the house?” “No, the whole family is on fire.” Unfortunately, I can’t think of Japanese phrasing that might reproduce this ambiguity, so I turn to Jim Breen’s online dictionary for examples of 家中 in sentences. I find two that distract me from my quest:
家中どこでも自由にはいれた。
Iejū dokodemo jiyū ni haireta.
The dog had the liberty of the entire house.The translation—which might be more idiomatically rephrased as “The dog had the run of the house”—comes from Breen’s site and refers to a dog. Oddly, the Japanese sentence doesn’t! The original sentence must have come from a larger discussion that made the subject obvious.
Another example from Breen:
皆留守だというのに、不思議なことに家中の電灯がついていた。
Mina rusu da to iu no ni, fushigina koto ni iejū no dentō ga tsuite ita.
Strange to say, all the lights in the house were on, though no one was at home.This brings to mind the expression, “The lights are on, but nobody’s home.” If 家中 did indeed have ambiguous meanings here, we could construe the whole family as stupid!
