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Two motifs of good fortune that work by entirely different mechanisms — one by a pun, the other by a picture.
The bat is a pun: its name sounds like the word for good fortune, so the animal itself carries no meaning and the resemblance is entirely in the sound. The pomegranate is a picture: its many seeds stand for many descendants, and the meaning survives translation because it is in the thing rather than in the word. That difference is why the bat motif does not travel out of Chinese and the pomegranate does.
The other fortune motif it sits beside, and the contrast in how each works.
Drawn from the visual attributes recorded for each symbol. Only traits the two records disagree about are listed.
| Trait | The Chinese bat motif | The pomegranate motif |
|---|---|---|
| Built from | animals | plants |
| Colour | red | Not colour-specific |
| The Chinese bat motif | The pomegranate motif | |
|---|---|---|
| How the meaning works | By a pun on the word. | By a property of the object. |
| Survives translation | No. | Yes. |
| Relationship (from Symbolwise's records) | Commonly confused with The pomegranate motif — The other fortune motif it sits beside, and the contrast in how each works. | Commonly confused with The Chinese bat motif — The other fortune motif it sits beside, and the contrast in how each works. |
The Chinese calendar: the sexagenary cycle and the twenty-four solar terms
Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences · retrieved 2026-08-27
The institution that computes the official Chinese calendar, cited for the structure of the cycle and the definition of each solar term. Cultural associations attached to a stem, branch or term are not sourced here and are typed accordingly in the records.
The ampersand is a ligature of the Latin word et, still visible in some italic forms where the e and the t can be picked out. The Tironian et is a separate mark descending from a Roman shorthand, shaped like a small seven, and it is in daily public use in Ireland as the written form of 'agus'. A reader who knows only the ampersand takes the other for a numeral, which on a bilingual road sign produces a confidently wrong place name.
Count them, and check whether any is broken. Three intact links — usually lettered F, L and T — identify a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. A chain with a link snapped through expresses a family or fellowship broken by a death. One is an identification, the other an interpretation, and mistaking the first for the second loses real information about who is buried there.
A campaign medal is issued to everyone who served in a defined operation for a defined period. A gallantry decoration is awarded to a named individual for a specific act, on a citation, usually after a recommendation and a review. The first is a record of presence, the second of conduct — and a row of campaign medals says nothing about bravery, which is worth knowing before drawing conclusions from a photograph.
Look at the palms. Praying hands are pressed flat against one another with the fingers pointing up. Clasped hands are gripped in a handshake, shown from the side. They carry different readings, and on clasped hands the carved cuffs tell you more than the gesture does — a feminine cuff clasping a masculine one conventionally marks a married couple.