L15 Flashcards
>> top part of 学
SCHOOLHOUSE // as you write, feel the three strokes, and how they complete after the third one. As you write, say your ABCs, and your 123s, as you would in the schoolhouse every day.
学
STUDY // a child in a schoolhouse is only there for one reason; to study. this child, in fact, is a young ebernezer scrooge, studying hard throughout the cold winter. but is he learning his lesson or just studying for study’s sake?
觉
SENSES // eyesight is taught as one of five senses in the schoolhouse science lab. but what schoolhouses fail to teach is the ‘sixth sense’ - something you can’t see, but is a vital life skill to master.
攵
TASKMASTER // seated in his chair, languid, mr clennet brandishes his trident above his head and reduces a year 7 boy to tears. quite the taskmaster, but you’ll never forget those verb endings now.
攻
ATTACK // construction can be a hairy business. in building the olympic park beijing 2008, taskmaster foremen had to lead their men to pick up i-Beam gurders and attack the local Beijingers who complained. “ATTACK - for our sports, men!”
敌
ENEMY // it’s one thing to face your enemy from head on. even a hoard of orks encroaching fast. but imagine if the enemy was lashing you with their tongue from behind… as if gandalf had been possessed as a lizard taskmaster. the enemy behind.
败
FAIL // clams, poor, helpless clams, are driven to edible success by taskmaster crabs. clams that don’t make themselves tasty enough get a ‘FAIL’ stamp, and then the crab jabs them with its pincer.
故
DELIBERATELY // ancient taskmasters, wise with age but hardened with repetition, can tell between those who sin accidentally and those who sin deliberately. The ancient taskmasters, then, come down furiously on those who sinned deliberately, and they use lightning.
救
RESCUE // usually it’s the head-task-master who is requesting things of his pupils, “tuck your shirt in” / “shut up, boy!”. But you’re swimming… and you’re drowning… so you gargle “please, sir, can you rescue me?”
敬
REVERE // to those you revere, you would use flowery sentences. but just as you’re trying to get out a latin phrase when meeting Stephen Fry, you remember your school taskmaster, and reverence turns to shame.
敞
SPACIOUS // You’ve worked at the printing company for 7 years, and your taskmaster of a boss has always been a numpty… or so you think. Because when, after 7 years, he shows you how spacious his house is (the hallway fits a tennis court), you finally hold him in esteem. You hang a picture on your wall with him in his tennis gear in the hallway.)
言
SAY // “what you say can and will be held against you”, so those two faced people who speak out of two sides of their mouth… well, they’d better put a top hat on their two sides to diguise the lie.
words // 讠
警
POLICE // the speeding teenagers spent the whole journey dissing the police. but when they were pulled over, each of them revered the words he spoke, for the word of the law is worth revering.
计
PLAN // to ensure their plan would stay in disguised, the plotting bank thieves used needles to sew words to each other in doillies. “explosives” said one, “disable the alarm” another. a faultless plan for evading detectives.
让
YIELD // or, rather, give way, as at a junction. but to who? why? what’s going on? drivers are confused. so above the sign, put a bubble that explains it in simple words.
