Sinograph Addenda · Signs

place

Name	place
Reads	suǒ
Means	place; that which — the nominalizer
Taught in	06 · The one who, the thing which

Where it comes from

A door leaf and an axe — Shuowen hears a woodcutter’s sound-word; take the graph whole. The noun is place; the grammar is the treasure: 所 before a verb makes “the what-is-verbed” — 所知, what is known; 所欲, what is desired — the mirror of 者’s “the one who”. Taught in the one-who chapter.

How to remember it

The place behind the door where the axe hangs.

In the wild

其所厚者薄。qí suǒ hòu zhě bó"what he should treat as weighty is treated thinly" — neglecting the essential while fussing over trifles; 所…者 wrapping a verb into a thing

Great Learning (Daxue). urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1d0052:043:1a · license: attribution.