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The word "ideogram" has fallen out of fashion because it's a very poor description of Chinese characters. A Chinese character doesn't describe an idea: it desc
by yongjik 5y ago
The word "ideogram" has fallen out of fashion because it's a very poor description of Chinese characters. A Chinese character doesn't describe an idea: it describes a concrete word, with a definite pronunciation. It's just that the relation between the shape of the character and its sound is much more obscure than most scripts.
An example of an actual ideogram is the exit sign (you know, a green man running out of a door) - it conveys the idea without having a canonical associated word.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> it conveys the idea without having a canonical associated word. You could make a pretty good case that the associated word is "EXIT".
- yongjik 5y agoThe case is not that strong: for example, nobody writes "It's hard to find out how to <exit icon> vim." The icon represents the concept of "a door used for emergency exit", not the word "exit".
- thaumasiotes 5y agoI think we're talking about different things. I found an image of the sign you're talking about by searching for "exit sign", but I wouldn't have called it an exit sign and wouldn't really understand what it's supposed to mean. To me, an exit sign is mounted on the ceiling and just says "EXIT".