Here’s another recent favorite Japanese word. It’s composed of two rather unusual Chinese characters. One meaning spear and the other meaning shield. And when they’re combined, you get ‘logical inconsistency.’
I wish I knew how to dig deeper into etymologies of Japanese words like this. I suppose I may need to just ask someone. I just imagine some Buddhist fighter/ philosophers sitting around shooting the breeze and trying to put a fine point on why their interlocutor’s argument is just plain wrong. Let’s see… how can I spell this out for you?
All of the below is copied and pasted from the WWWJDIC.
矛 [JIS] 4C37 [Uni] 77db [部首] 110 [教育] 8 [画数] 5 [音] ム ボウ [訓] ほこ [英] halberd; arms; festival float
[Uni] 76fe [部首] 4 [部古] 109 [教育] 8 [画数] 9 [音] ジュン [訓] たて [英] shield; escutcheon; pretext