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[IBC] "yamadori" boxwood
At 08:13 AM 9/15/2003 -0400, Jim Lewis wrote:
There's a rather silly discussion on the gallery about a bonsai event somewhere that is having a "Yamadori Boxwood" workshop. Someone mocked that that meant they were all collected (presumably in the wild) from the mountains. This seemed to me to be another example of people insisting that the shades of meaning of a word don't change over time (and geography). I've seen more and more often the use of "yamadori" as merely a "collected" tree, since comparatively few bonsai now are collected in "mountains." Certainly none of mine are, few (if any) of Gary Marchall's, etc. I think I even read somewhere -- and quite recently, too -- that even the Japanese aren't kowtowing to the _exact_ meaning of "yamadori" any more and use the term for a collected tree. The expanded usage makes sense for both here and there (and particularly for boxwood ;-) which are mostly collected from old hedges, though I suppose the plant may still exist in the wild somewhere in Asia. (Heck, they exist in the wild here -- having escaped from old farmsteads to crop up in the north Florida woods.) Thoughts? Purists vs. loose constructionists. Liberals (thinkers ;-) versus conservatives (if it wasn't done that way yesterday it ain't right! ;-). I did something on this for Bonsai Today On Line. Yama means picked, dori means mountain. Since there are no plants left in the mountains usage of the word changed to mean collected from the wild. This is a usage known only in bonsai circles. So anything ever cultivated even allowed to grow wild is not yamadori by the experts even today. Yamadori now seems to mean styled by nature. Any person learning Japanese as a second language or being born here would not get this meaning. Japanese has many subtle variations known by various classes of people. I worked at a company where I purchased business cards in English and Japanese for our 35 year old CEO. The Japanese type setter chose what he thought the proper title, but is also meant honored grandfather. After that we had a well bred very proper educated Japanese woman do all our title translations. Kitsune Miko ************************************************** ****************************** ++++Sponsored, in part, by Dale Cochoy++++ ************************************************** ****************************** -- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ -- +++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++ |
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