Radical 丿

3 strokes

麼

slide (34b) + cocoon 厶 (34a) = appendage 么

We’ve called this character “appendage” because it is used as a suffix, in words like zhème (see below) and shénme (see Character 35).

You will see that we are continuing to add phrases in brackets to some of the stories. these phrases are to help you visualize (and hence remember) the scene. Of course the words in bold are all you need to remember in the end, but you’ll remember them more easily once you recall the scene.

这么 (26) zhème like this, in this manner

The cocoon had been fixed to the top of the children’s slide, as an appendage (perhaps so that the new butterfly, when she emerges, can use the slide like a ski-jump for her first flight!) / This throws the robot ’s circuits into a dreadful muddle (as he wasn’t allowed to remove it when he cleaned the slide).

This character originally meant “cocoon”, and from this it came to mean “to shut away”, hence “self-centered” or “selfish”.

We will call this stroke “slide” (think of a children’s playground slide). It is much longer than a drop, and is always drawn in a downward direction.