Most egregious examples of the reading of a kanji changing due to (textually) distant characters

I've been thinking about how Japanese people can read a text (out loud, say) when the readings of the kanji can be so variable depending on okurigana, suffixes, or prefixes that change the meaning and/or expected part of speech, all of which can impact the reading of a kanji. This implies that you have to "read ahead" before you can be expected to pronounce the phrase correctly. In English, you are mostly guaranteed to have all the information you need to pronounce a word correctly after seeing all the letters of the word, with a few exceptions like "read" [red/ri:d] depending on part of speech, but in Japanese this distinction is muddier because word boundaries depend on correct word recognition in the first place. What are the worst examples you can see of this phenomenon in Japanese?

Although this view is in part informed by many examples which I cannot fully recall, the ones I can think of at the moment are:

• 一昨日【おととい】 / 昨日【きのう】 / 日【ひ】



• 一本気【いっぽんぎ】 / 本気【ほんき】


• 今日【こんにち】は、先生！ / 今日【きょう】は、先生が来てくれます。

There are of course also many words in Japanese whose readings are not distinguishable despite any amount of context, because the readings are interchangeable　(family names often fall in this category), but I am interested in readings which are distinguishable but require a lot of context before they can be placed correctly.

By the way, what do you usually do when a kanji has multiple readings with different meanings but context can't distinguish them (because they are the same part of speech or grammatical role)? I had this issue recently with 開く【ひらく】 / 開く【あく】, and when I asked about it I was told that あく is more commonly transitive than ひらく. It still seems like a mess, though, even for a native.

organic chemistry - Stability of alkenes by hyper conjugation

I have learnt that for carbocations, electrons are delocalized from the $\ce{C-H}$ $\sigma$-bond to the empty p-orbital of carbon.

Moreover, alkenes are stabilized by the delocalization of electron from $\ce{C-H}$ $\sigma$-bond to the empty anti bonding $\pi$ molecular orbital.

But, don't electrons in anti bonding molecular orbitals lead to instability? So, how does hyper conjugation lead to stability of alkenes?

I believe this question has already been asked before, but I couldn't find any satisfactory and/or relevant answers.

Answer

You are confusing the mixing of orbitals with the promotion of electrons from one orbital to another. You're thinking of this:

$\hspace{50 mm}$

I don't blame you, because the phrasing "delocalisation into an antibonding orbital" implies that, but that is not actually what happens.

In what actually happens, the two original orbitals are said to mix. They cease to exist. They overlap to give two new MOs, one which is even lower in energy and one which is higher in energy, like in this diagram:

$\hspace{45 mm}$

The "new MO 1" has characteristics of both the original $\ce{C-H}$ $\sigma$ as well as the original $\ce{C=C}$ $\pi^*$, which is why we loosely say "donation into the $\pi^*$ orbital". However, don't take it too literally. The phrase means that two orbitals are mixed. It does not mean that electrons are promoted from one orbital to another.

halacha theory - At what point do we reject a minhag?

I was learning the halachos of berachos on things that are ground up, and it seemed pretty clear to me that the blessing on chocolate should be ha'etz. I found discussion in some more contemporary poskim who all seemed to take the same approach - "Really, it seems like it should be ha'etz, but the minhag is to make a shehakol, so let's see if we can explain it." That's fine with me - I have no problem coming up with an explanation to justify the minhag. What I was bothered by was the conclusion of R' Shlomo Zalman Aurbach, who after trying several approaches to explain the minhag, does not find any satisfactory explanation for it being a shehakol. He leaves it as a צע"ג - needs major further investigation. But he doesn't conclude to reject the minhag. It seems that he still accepts that the proper blessing is shehakol.

For myself, I am fine accepting the approaches offered in other responsa and making a shehakol. What I don't understand is why R' Shlomo Zalman, for himself, did not reject the minhag.

Chocolate was just a convenient example, so I hope readers do not get stuck on the example. My question, succinctly put, is at what point, if ever, can an established, accepted minhag be rejected as mistaken?

halacha - Making seltzer/soda water on Shabbat or Yom Tov

Can a person make seltzer on shobbos or yom tov with something like sodastream?

tefilla - What is the proper procedure for answering parts of Kedusha?

I checked 3 different Siddurim for instructions regarding how to respond to parts of the Kedusha. All are Nusach Ashkenaz

Art Scroll has inconsistent rules:

Weekday Kedusha Shacharit & Mincha

Cong. then chazzan say נקדש

Cong. and chazzan say קדוש together ; Chazzan only לעומתם

Cong. and chazzan say ברוך together ; Chazzan only ובדברי

Cong. and chazzan say ימלוך together

Shabbat Shacharit and Musaph Kedusha

Cong. then chazzan say נקדש

All other paragraphs are said by cong. followed by Chazzan

I don't know why Art Scroll has different rules for weekday and Shabbat. Is this an error?

Birnbaum

All paragraphs are cong. followed by the chazzan

Chayim Shlomo

For the weekday Kedusha (I haven't checked what he does for Shabbat, and, B"N, I'll edit it in later):

Cong. then chazzan say נקדש

Cong. then chazzan say קדוש ; Chazzan only לעומתם

Cong. then chazzan say ברוך ; Chazzan only ובדברי

Cong. then chazzan say ימלוך

---

In summary, there seem to be 3 versions of what to do after the 1st paragraph. (All agree that the Cong. starts the Kedushah)

Version 1 - Alternate starting with the 2nd paragraph with 2nd said by Cong. then Chazan, 3rd only Chazzan, 4th Cong. then Chazzan, etc.

Version 2 - Same as version 1, except that 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc. are said by Chazzan & Cong. together

Version 3 - All paragraphs are done by Cong. then by chazzan

So, which version is correct, or are all acceptable?

Answer

The original method (dating back to the Tosefta Berakhot 1:11) which was uniformly practiced in all locations (Ashkenaz, Poland, Spain, North Africa, Yemen, Italy, etc.) is simply the leader recites the entire paragraph out loud and the congregation says the verses from Tanakh along with him (eg. "Kadosh...Kevodo"). This is the version endorsed by essentially all Rishonim through to the Shulchan Arukh and Rama (OC 125).

The Ari's practice was, for Kabbalistic reasons, to also recite the rest of the paragraph along with the leader in an undertone, and to additionally say the opening two words "Na'aritzecha veNakdishecha" aloud with the leader.

(In some places, people apparently liked saying the leader's portions along and/or doing so too loudly so he would wait for them to get it out of their systems before saying his parts, and hence the "Cong. then chazzan" instructions you see sometimes. Really though there isn't supposed to be any significant pausing by the leader during Kedusha.)

What is the relation between the two verbs 思われる and 思う?

If 思われる is "its own verb," meaning "to seem;  to appear," and is independent of the separate verb 思う, meaning "to think," is there a conceptual relation between the two? I ask because I initially thought 思われる to be the passive form of 思う. Would it be wrong to think of 思われる meaning "it is thought" rather than "it seems"?

意外に思われるかもしれません。 This may surprise you.

このことは、私たちにはとても不思議に思われる。 This appears very strange to us.

そのようなプロジェクトを経た後では、すべてがはるかにたやすいように思われる。 Having come from something like the project, it seems like everything is a lot easier.

それは私には奇妙に思われる。 It seems strange to me.

彼女はとても年をとっているように思われる。 She seems (to me) (to be) a very old woman.

Answer

I've been thinking about various different sentences that include 思われる to see if any of them feel like a distinctive word of its own, and my feeling is that the answer is no.

思う does mean "to think", as in "明日は雨だと思う / I think it'll rain tomorrow", and thus its passive form 思われる means "it is thought". The passiveness would be amplified when it is used without a specific subject, making it ambiguous as to who is thinking. Doing this creates a sense that the thought is shared by many/all/everyone, as in "情勢は不利だと思われる / the situation does not appear good." It makes the sentence feel more objective, and I think this is the effect that's making you feel that it has a separate meaning.

In contrast, when 思われる is used with a specific subject, it's easy to see that it's the passive form of 思う. This is true even when the subject is implied, as in "バカだと思われるよ / [he will] think you are stupid."

Note that 思われる is also a polite form (尊敬語) of 思う, as in "どう思われますか？ / What do you think?". The example of "意外に思われるかもしれません" that you cited is also this usage.

questions - Is んじゃないの rhetorical? And other conversation nuances

B: says that no one ever became ill just because they didn't ask for good health on a tanzaku. And then:

A: 「じゃあ、たんざくに書いたくらいで金持ちになる人もいないんじゃないの」
A: Well, no one ever became rich just by writing on a tanzaku either (did they?)
B:「いいんだ。こまかいことを言うな」

I can't work out if んじゃないの is a real question or a rhetorical question.

Because of that I can't understand the reply. Is こまかいことを言うな "Don't say trivial things" or "Don't ask trivial things"?

In fact I'm not sure about the whole of B's reply. Is いいんだ supposed to be consoling as in "It's all okay. Don't worry about trivial problems", or is it more like. "It's fine! Stop asking stupid questions".

Answer

Conclusion first: It is rhetorical.

「～～人もいないんじゃないの」

always means:

"There is no one who ~~, right?"

I used "right?", but this 「（ん）じゃないの」 is closer to the French "n'est-ce pas?" in both meaning and feeling. It is used much more to make a statement than to ask a question even though the sentence is usually uttered with a rising intonation at the end.

「～～人もいないんじゃないの」≒「～～人もいないでしょう」≒「～～人も/はいない」

「んじゃないの」, therefore, does not really change the meaning of the sentence. It only helps obtain the listener's agreement. The expression contains 「ない」, but it is NOT a negative expression.

If I said 「このピザうまいじゃない。」, the only thing it can mean is "This pizza is yummy!", but I have encountered quite a few Japanese-learners who thought it meant "This pizza is not yummy." What they need to understand is that the negative form of 「うまい」 is 「うまくない」 and not 「うまいじゃない」.

Moving on to B's reply...

Is こまかいことを言うな "Don't say trivial things" or "Don't ask trivial things"?

It is the former. As I explained above, A is not asking a question in the first place.

Is いいんだ supposed to be consoling as in "It's all okay. Don't worry about trivial problems", or is it more like. "It's fine! Stop asking stupid questions".

It is the former, precisely.