Mysterious moon character

staffanlincoln
January 11, 2011, 05:12 AM posted in General Discussion

I'm studying words for body parts. A lot of those characters seem to have the 月 character embedded. Like the word for liver: 肝,stomach: 胃, and the word for muscle: 肌. What's the connection here?

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sharesindavid
January 11, 2011, 05:41 AM

the thing that looks like 月 here is actually 肉 (ròu). it is radical number 130 of the traditional 214, as opposed to the actual 月 (yuè) which is radical 74. the connection between meat/flesh and body parts should be pretty obvious; don't ask me why it looks so much like yuè 

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staffanlincoln
January 11, 2011, 06:53 PM

Thanks. That makes a lot more sense.