# identifying chinese characters in Bookshelf Symbol 7 font

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-chinese-characters-in-bookshelf-symbol-7-font/626528>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 28, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-chinese-characters-in-bookshelf-symbol-7-font/626528 "2012-06-28T01:06:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ferris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ferris/32/11573_2.png) [@Ferris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferris)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-chinese-characters-in-bookshelf-symbol-7-font/626528/1 "2012-06-28T01:06:50Z")

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I’ve been playing around with the ‘insert symbol’ function in Excel 2007 and found a bunch of Chinese-looking symbols in the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font. Two of them are drawn within circles and apparently mean ‘good’ and ‘evil’, but characters 135-142 and 144-146 are ones I can’t find any information on. Google is preoccupied with the fact that this font used to contain Nazi symbol(s) which were removed in a slightly controversial update, so I’m asking the Teeming M’s if they know.

A Chinese work colleague who explained the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ meanings didn’t know, and said her mother believed them to be an older style of symbol. A shame I can’t just post a picture of them or link, sorry.

Any help very welcome.

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**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-chinese-characters-in-bookshelf-symbol-7-font/626528/2 "2012-06-28T02:12:19Z")

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I’ll assume, from a quick Google Image search that the characters in question are:

善 and 悪

They indeed mean “good” and “evil”, respectively.

[http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/sq/b7s.gif](http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/sq/b7s.gif)

Some of the other characters, after the second swastika:

������: In simplified form: 秭, a number: 10[sup]24[/sup]. In Mandarin: _zǐ_, Japanese: _jo_.  
������: An obscure Japanese character, which reads as _ara_ and is the name of a fish, niphon spinosus, related to sea bass.  
焮: Apparently means “to radiate heat” in Chinese. Pronounce _xìn_.  
欹: Japanese _sobadateru_, which means “to prick up (one’s ears)”.  
������: In Japanese, _hokke_, a fish: Pleurogrammus azonus.

Anyway, they’re all extremely uncommon characters that are not part of some character sets which is probably why they were added to this font. However, there are hundreds and hundreds of such characters and I’m at a loss to tell you why _those_ in particular are there.

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**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-chinese-characters-in-bookshelf-symbol-7-font/626528/3 "2012-06-28T02:14:32Z")

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Oh well, edited and some characters disappeared… Sigh.

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**Author:** ![Ferris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ferris/32/11573_2.png) [@Ferris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferris)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identifying-chinese-characters-in-bookshelf-symbol-7-font/626528/4 "2012-06-28T06:32:56Z")

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Thanks!

I was half expecting that they’d be all related, e.g. numbers 1 to 10 or something, so interesting to learn that they’re so obscure.