Remove the grass radical for either jasmine or lotus and you get the
same pinyin name with another meaning.

http://i19.tinypic.com/4yirtk8.gif

Jim

On Apr 28, 6:08 pm, cha bing > wrote:
> On Apr 28, 11:51 am, Space Cowboy > wrote:
>
> > I guess. Another li4 character without the grass radical on top means
> > sharp. You find that character using the dao radical on the right
> > which is the downstroke and hooked downstroke.
>
> > Jim
>
> The "Li" character on my tea packaging is the "Li4" that means sharp.
> According to three different dictionaries I have (all from mainland),
> the "Li" used in the word "jasmine" is the same as the "Li4" that
> means "sharp", except with the grass ("cao") radical. Both "li"'
> characters appear to use that "Dao" radical within them, except I
> guess it is not the "radical" when the grass radical is on top.
>
> Since we've gone this far into a Chinese discussion (it would be a lot
> easier if I could just post a picture of the character, but this has
> given me a great excuse to pull out old chinese text books), the "li"
> on my packaging contains the grass, or "Cao" radical on top
> (simplified form), the growing grain, or "He" radical on the lower
> left (similar to the tree radical, only with a slanted line on top),
> and the knife, or "Dao" radical on the lower right. It almost looked
> like, in the packaging you sent that the lower left in some writings
> of "Li" could use what I understand to be a "wei" character (meaning
> "not, no") instead of the "he" character. Due to the font, I can't
> tell which one babelcarp uses.
>
> Interestingly, neither "Mo" nor "Li" appear to have any independent
> meaning. Anyone know why they are used together for the word
> "jasmine" (e.g., is the word is a phonetic approximation of a foreign
> word), or is that just the way the word is written?
>
> -Charles