Jiong Permutations

by John Pasden in language

The 囧 (jiǒng) phenomenon has been around for a while now, and I’m starting to see more and more permutations of it. Here are a few examples.

From an online Chinese ad:

From TofuBrain‘s Flickr page:

From a local shop:

What have you seen?

Flickr updates:

This photo by 强悍的兔子.Rabbit has many permutations:

Also, these two examples of 囧 showing up in the character 明…

…are explained by this comic [large size]:

The comic says that the character 明 actually derives, not from 日 and 月 as is commonly taught, but from 囧 and 月. This etymology seems to confirm it. So one of the earliest character etymologies we learn (sun + moon = bright) is either a lie, or actually just a bit more ambiguous than we were led to believe? Interesting!

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