Re: Japanese "good", consonant clusters etc.

Axiem wrote:
> >             _bijin (no)_, "good-lookin'" (woman, girl)
>
> "Bijin", by kanji, is "bi" ("beautiful") and "jin" ("person"), so this is
> more of a "beautiful person".
Well, according to my kanji dictionary, _bijin_ is "beautiful woman",
and I have only heard it used of a woman myself.  Given the literal
meaning, I would assume it originally applied to both men and women, but
I don't know for sure.

The kanji for "beauty" is rather interesting.  :-)  "sheep" + "big"  A
big sheep was a desirable thing, thus the combination was used for
"desirable", which came to mean "beautiful"

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