Darkhorse

So the official term for this, when a kanji is read one way in some contexts and a different way in others, is usually a case of onyomi vs kunyomi. -yomi, "reading" (from yomu "to read") basically categorizes words into whether you read them with the chinese pronunciation or the japanese pronunciation.

There are a lot of complicated factors that go into this but the easiest way for english speakers to wrap their heads around it is that the Japanese language ended up with multiple sets of vocabulary in the same way that the English language did with the Germanic language/Romance language split; you have one set of vocabulary for common, everyday use that derives from germanic vocab, and then another set of vocabulary for fancy, formal use that derives from Latinate vocab. The classic example is using swine to describe the animal, which the Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxon farmers and handlers would tend to, and porc to describe the meat, which the French-speaking Normans would eat. But pretty much every word in the English language has some degree of casual-formal duplication of this kind.

Much like European scholars did with Latin, a bunch of vocabulary got imported by the literati of Japan starting around about the 5th century in order to have a different and more formal register to talk about certain topics. This was imported alongside the Chinese writing system at the same time, which then over the next few centuries was shifted into a simpler, non-logographic, syllabic script that became hiragana (the wavy one.)

But that means that a bunch of imported Chinese vocabulary was conventionally written in their original-or-close-to-it hanzi form, and spoken with their original-or-close-to-it Chinese pronunciation. Words of this type have a much higher incidence of long vowels, left over from the Chinese where each character would represent a single complex syllable varied by vowel intonation, compared to native Japanese words which are polysyllabic and hit more consonants.

So, the system has evolved in various directions over time, and now there are a lot of ways that a single character can be read depending on positioning and context, but the broad strokes are: if the kanji is mostly on its own, surrounded by hiragana, it will take the Japanese reading (kunyomi) and if it's part of a compound word, paired with other kanji, it will take the Chinese reading (onyomi.) The more formal the text -- especially notable with medical, scientific, or governmental texts -- the more dense and compacted it will get, with a much higher ratio of kanji compounds to hiragana, and a correspondingly higher dose of onyomi readings.

To leave off with one example: the video above highlights (手), which is 'hand.' When it appears by itself surrounded by simple words like participles, it takes the kunyomi te, like in the sentence 'take my hand' (手を握って, te o nigitte.) But if you are using it as part of a more abstraction concept, like in 手動 -- done by hand, or manual, see how the english term underwent the exact same shift into latinate when it gains a level of abstraction? -- then it becomes part of a compound word with another kanji. Now it takes the onyomi shu, to become part of the compound word shudou. Catch that long vowel! If it weren't part of a compound word, that 動 by itself would take the kunyomi hataraki, for motion or action.

'Troupe', 'troop', and 'thorp'. Loaned from French twice, as well as the homegrown term for a small village/group of houses.

'Pack', and 'bailey'. Native word and French loan.

"Sir', 'sire', 'seigneur' and 'Monsieur'. All from French at slightly different times and in different contexts.

Same with 'dame', 'dam', 'madam', and 'ma'am'.

'Mister', 'master', 'magister' and 'maître d'. All from Latin and French.

To 'spout' and 'spit'. First is from Dutch, second is native English.

To 'wake', 'watch' and 'wait'. First two are native English, third is from French.

To 'ward' versus 'guard'. Same word, but the second one was borrowed into Latin and then back into English from French.

Next, "die" does mean "day," though nominative singular is "dies," i.e. "dies irae." It could be conjugated "die" if it was in ablative or locative case, but "die ad die" would mean something more like "day to day." "Ad" is in a "to" direction and "ab" is from, i.e. "ab urbis," and ablative case is used to indicate the movement of a thing. In short, "by" is not really a way to translate "ad"; we might want "per" here? (Through, by means of, etc.)

It is possible to find both sapphic SFF and M/M fantasy. It is significantly harder to find, say, aro urban fantasy. Or trans romantic suspense. Or intersex mystery.

A lot of the advice above only really works for trad published or popular books and for identities/subgenres/content that aren't too niche.

So here's some advice if the advice above isn't working for you (either because you can't find books with what you want or because the books you are finding don't end up being the vibe you want), from someone who reads a few hundred books a year:

Find websites or lists dedicated to the specific thing you are looking for. They will generally have more variety and will post you to examples that don't show up in regular rec lists. (ex: aro book recs, ace book recs, intersex #ownvoices database, sapphic books). Goodreads lists can (sometimes) also be your friend.

Get comfortable reading self-published and small press books. Trad publishing has its blind spots.

Check Reddit for recommendations

Start figuring out what it is specifically that you like and then start making your searches more specific. This can be subgenre (if you want urban fantasy, you're rarely going to find it just searching "fantasy"), tropes, plot devices, vibes, etc.

Look at the "readers also bought" on Goodreads/Amazon, similar books on Storygraph, etc. if you read a book you like. Even if you don't end up reading the one you click on, it can show you similar authors (similar to looking at the blurb on a cover), especially because far fewer books have blurbs now.

The largest dam removal in U.S. history. So successful that the salmon that haven’t run freely in the river for literally over a century came back the next year. Not steady progress over a decade as expected, the very next salmon run they came home. No one alive saw salmon in that river outside the hatcheries kept by native’s tribes and the Department of Fish And Wildlife scientists desperately trying to save them. One of the activists who helped bring the suit spoke of their dying grandmother making them promise to bring the fish home, and they didn’t know how that was possible, but they spent decades doing it.

The legal basis for successfully suing the power company who owned the dams was Indigenous treaty rights to eat the fish. Eating the fish was the one thing in a century that succeeded in being a clear and legally binding right that superseded the desires of white capital and industry. I have been going to the public interest environmental law conference off and on for 20 years where a lot of organizing for Undam The Klamath happened. I’ve heard updates about every legal tact they tried as they happened, and they tried everything.

There are healthy, thriving salmon, trout, and lamprey in a rewilding and recovering Klamath River right now as a direct result of Indigenous people eating them. Of their legally binding right to eat them. They sure as fuck care more about those fish than any white vegan ever could. They are salmon people that the Creator sent Salmon to feed, while charging the People with protecting and stewarding them. It’s not possible to learn about salmon and trout in the Pacific Northwest without learning this, and it’s unambiguously racist to dismiss this symbiotic relationship.

The white vegans are trying to get all hunting and fishing banned in Oregon, and that’s quite possibly the single most catastrophic thing that could be done to the animals here because we killed off all the major predators of creatures like deer and without anything hunting them their numbers will explode, eat all the vegetation, destroy the ecosystem, and then die along with everything else in that failing ecosystem. Controlled hunting of deer is vitally necessary for the deer to survive. This is something Native people know, but patronizing racist savior-complex white people refuse to listen to.

I have a whole collection of Oregon’s Public Broadcasting’s documentaries about Klamath River or the larger story of fish and people in the region. If you watch nothing else, watch Klamath Dams Are Coming Out, First Salmon Ceremony, After The Dams, and First Decent (Native made). It could not be clearer that the salmon are being protected and nourished by the people who eat them, and that stewardship is a massive part of their creation myths. But it contradicts political vegan dogma so they don’t listen.

-> Phonics For Adults <-

no. i don't.

i booked a front row seat to the devil's sacrament and you're blocking the view