I have been puzzling over this character myself, actually. It as occurred to me that the common rendering of the character into English as 'slippery' might be less accurate than 'slip' in the sense of a thickened liquid. That is, the 'slip' composed of diluted clay in pottery, or possibly the starchy liquid used to coat canvas in order to stretch it taut on a frame. Such a translation would seem to correspond with the thickening sauce used in many of the 溜 recipes I have seen. I have NO idea if I am even close on this but it seems a pretty reasonable interpretation. Any thoughts?
溜 - Slippery (slip?)
Date: 2010-11-28 04:45 am (UTC)