The Shell Bone Script for character Again
What does this represent? The Pictographic Dictionary explains it as follows:
"It resembles a bamboo cage used for fishing. Ancient people would split one end of a bamboo into many strips, weave them together with fine bamboo strands to form a gradually opening trumpet mouth. They then attached a funnel-shaped bamboo ring at the mouth, making it easy for fish to enter but hard to exit, trapping them inside the cage. Fishermen would retrieve the fish from the gaps between the flexible bamboo strips and place the cage back into the water, allowing them to repeatedly catch fish."
I agree with this explanation because my hometown, Zhijiang in Hunan, has such bamboo cages called "Zuan1 Zai3," which sounds like "zhuǎn zài" and might be the characters "钻再" (let fish enter but not exit the bamboo cage). In Zhijiang dialect, "zh" and "z" sounds are not distinguished. "钻再" signifies a bamboo trap for catching fish.
Here is the internal structure:
This is specifically used to catch mud eels. These traps are placed at the water inlets of rice fields, allowing the eels to enter easily but preventing them from escaping, similar to a trap or a hook without an actual hook.
It can be reused for many years, as bamboo is durable and doesn't rot easily. The meaning of character Again is associated with reusability.
Big Seal Script for character Again
This script resembles the bamboo trap for catching eels:
The Small Seal Script for character Again
It also looks like the eel trap:
The Clerical Script for character Again
Still resembling the bamboo cage.
"再" represents the bamboo trap used to catch eels, which allows eels to enter into the trap and be caught. This is a reasonable explanation.
Shell Bone Script of character Meet
A large eye above a human body, emphasizing the act of seeing:
The difference between "Look/See/Watch" and "Meet" is that Look/See/Watch is often one-directional and doesn't necessarily involve a person as the object. In contrast, Meet usually implies a two-way interaction and often involves two or more people. For instance, "I watch/see a movie" is natural, but "I meet a movie" is awkward. "When shall we meet?" is natural, whereas "When shall we look/see/watch at each other?" is uncomfortable.
Big Seal Script of character Meet
It still features a large eye and a human body.
Small Seal Script of character Meet
The 目 on the top is an eye (vertical), the below is a simplified body.
Clerical Script of character Meet
The top part remains 目 (eye), while the lower part represents a body, even though is not alike. As the character evolved, the gradually lost the pictography, or people less pay attention to its pictography, more to how easy to write.
The simplified song typeface character of Meet
The top part no longer clearly resembles an eye.
People put the two character together to form a word
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