Wednesday, May 27, 2020

小澤征爾さんの名前の書き方 (or, How Ozawa writes his name).


For company while working, I have on the old (1950–1967) game show What's My Line?, each episode of which features a celebrity, each of whom, on entering the stage, writes their name on a chalkboard. Here's how the illustrious symphony conductor Seiji Ozawa* writes his:




Interesting to track the motion of his writing. He runs 小 into 澤. He reverses the motion of the first two dots of 三水. Writes the running-man radical (行人偏, gyouninben) as you would in gyousho and combines the last two strokes of 正 into a curve. The Xes in 爾 suggest there used to be something more complex within, but the character's etymology suggests that it's been written with Xes since forever.

*As it happens, Mr. Ozawa was not the celebrity on this episodes, which aired in 1963. The collective celebrity guest was Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Interesting, too, that さんすい means not just three-dot water but also, phonetically, sprinkled water (散水)., as if you could dip your fingertips into the suzuri and just flick them at the paper.

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