Tuber
editInformation about its edible tuber should not have been removed, since when Chinese go to the grocery store they call the food the plant produces (the edible, spherical tuber) by the same name). 24.29.228.33 22:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
- That information (and much more) is already in the hyperlinked Wikipedia article. I don't see a need to duplicate the information here as well. However, if you disagree, there's no harm in putting it back in (other than making the definition more cluttered). -- A-cai 23:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Looking at cucumber, we have both a definition giving the plant, and a second definition about the fruit; that's my logic here. I believe in Chinese the same term refers to the plant and the tuber, and can be used in both ways; following cucumber, we'd have a definition 1 and a definition 2. I think it would be a good idea. 131.123.231.143 23:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Is 慈姑 a synonym? 24.29.238.60 10:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, different characters for the same word: cígū.
慈姑 saves a couple of strokes, but doesn't seem to make sense. Nevertheless, a Google Image search shows that both spellings are used for this plant/vegetable. 24.29.238.60 14:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
菇 and 姑 are not listed as variants of each other in Unhan though they do have the same Mandarin reading. Both characters are in most vasic versions of both the GB and Big Five character sets but only 姑 is in the most basic version of JIS and KSC. 菇 is in extended JIS but not in extended KSC. 姑 is taught at grade 3 in Hong Kong while 菇 does not have a Hong Kong school grade. 慈姑 is the Japanese spelling at least though 姑 is not a Jōyō character.
姑 may be an unofficial/colloquial variant of 菇 perhaps even due to modern technical limitations imposed by 20th century computerized character encoding. Does anybody have access to a pre-computer character dictionary? — hippietrail 01:18, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
- I have been able to find both 慈菇 and 慈姑 in larger Chinese dictionaries but only 慈姑 in Japanese dictionaries. No dictionary contains both. No dictionary mentions 菇 and 姑 being variants of one another. No Japanese dictionary contains 菇 at all.
- Google estimates 156,000 hits for 慈姑; it estimates 128,000 for 慈菇.
- Limited to Simplified Chinese: 123,000 for 慈姑; 109,000 for 慈菇.
- Limited to Traditional Chinese: 15,600 for 慈姑; 20,900 for 慈菇.
- Limited to Japanese: 34,400 for 慈姑; 924 for 慈菇.
- Limited to .cn: 51,400 for 慈姑; 47,300 for 慈菇.
- Limited to .hk: 551 for 慈姑; 616 for 慈菇.
- Limited to .jp: 13,600 for 慈姑; 236 for 慈菇.
- Limited to .sg: 32 for 慈姑; 448 for 慈菇.
- Limited to .tw: 3,560 for 慈姑; 7,490 for 慈菇.