Talk:千本

RFV discussion: November 2011

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千本

Entry added by known-suspect IP user. Not finding any other dictionaries that list this term with the meanings listed. Just from the kanji, this means 千 (sen, “one thousand”) + 本 (hon, “counter for long slender things”), and has nothing explicitly to do with acupuncture. The linked JA and EN WP articles don't exist. The included picture is also included on the w:Acupuncture page, but the IP user edited the caption from there to replace "acupuncture" with this apparently spurious word "senbon".

Hit counts, searching for "千本" (this term) + 鍼 ("needle", more specifically referring to (deprecated template usage) acupuncture needles and thus likely to occur in this context) + の (the Japanese possessive particle, pretty much guaranteed to appear just on Japanese pages and thus a good way to weed out Chinese hits):

• google books:allintext: "千本" 鍼 の: 0
• google scholar:allintext: "千本" 鍼 の: 5, but all in the wrong contexts, such as "千本の萩" ("one thousand bush clover plants")
• google web:allintext: "千本" 鍼 の: 182K, but the first page of hits shows almost only uses such as "鍼千本" ("one thousand needles"), i.e. using 千本 as a number of long slender things, with a few place names sprinkled into the mix.

The 千本 page lists 千本術 as a derived term. Hits:

• google books:allintext: "千本術" の: 0
• google scholar:allintext: "千本術" の: 0
• google web:allintext: "千本術" の: 5, of which two show use as all or part of a person's name, two show use in role-playing game contexts, and one is about a character in a fictional universe.

Has anyone else heard of this? Or shall we just pull the big lever that opens the trap door under the stage, and send this dancing monkey down the garbage chute? -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 23:29, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I believe 千本 literally translates to a thousand (counter for long thin objects such as needles). I highly doubt it's used to mean a needle for acupuncture (which is most likely written as 鍼と針 or 鍼の針 - needle used for acupuncture). Its usage as a ninja weapon seems to be mainly inspired by w:Naruto. There is simply no evidence I can find that shows it is in fact a traditional throwing weapon used by REAL ninjas. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 02:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Great, thank you James for confirming my suspicions. I'll strip the page down to a bare-bones proper lexicographical entry for the meaning of "one thousand long thin objects", ideally at some point later today. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

 Done, striking. I also tracked down Wikipedia user w:User:Samuraiantiqueworld who added a mention of senbon to the w:Shuriken page in this edit, and asked them if they had a source for any real-world instances of an acupuncture tool or ninja weapon called a senbon. If they (really a "they", as best I can tell, as the user account seems to be shared by employees of SamuraiAntiqueWorld.com) get back to me with any valid sources, I'll edit the page accordingly. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:37, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Note: Samuraiantiqueworld got back to me. Their post and my reply from User_talk:Eirikr#senbon-shuriken are included below:

senbon-shuriken Hello, I uploaded the image to commons [[1]] and labeled it as a "shuriken", another user removed shuriken and substituted "senbon", I replaced "shuriken" and left "senbon" after doing some research. If you search for "senbon needles" or "senbon shuriken" etc on google image and web search you will find some examples. I have found some references that refer to senbon as "one thousand needles". "Senbon" seems to be used in manja a lot.[[2]][[3]] Samuraiantiqueworld 01:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC) Thank you for the background information, I appreciate it. As it stands, it looks like senbon might be becoming an English word meaning some sort of (imaginary?) ninja weapon, but 千本 as Japanese doesn't seem to have any such connotations. I'll amend the entry and discussion here on Wiktionary accordingly. -- Kind regards, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 01:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I can only find manga- and anime-related uses for senbon as an English term. Until such time as this has entered more mainstream (and citable) use, I'm not sure if it yet merits inclusion here. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 01:31, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

What's wrong with manga- and anime-related uses? As long as we can find three independent uses, in printed sources or Usenet, it merits inclusion. I'm not finding anything on Google Books, so I don't know what you're looking at--any possible uses of senbon as an English word are drowned out by proper noun usages and transliterated Japanese.--Prosfilaes 02:59, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I had a look at:

• google books:"senbon" -- quite a bit, with many hits having to do with the Japanese drama w:Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura.
• google books:"senbon" acupuncture OR ninja -- a more specific search, since this term was ostensibly related to ninja weapons and acupuncture, but most of these are Naruto terms.
• google books:"senbon" acupuncture OR ninja -naruto -- and now we get hardly anything at all, two place names, and one kabuki-related book that doesn't appear to actually include the senbon term, nor the alternate romanization sembon.

As the searches become more restrictive, it becomes clearer that the term senbon as English appears to show up pretty much exclusively in Naruto contexts, which fails the CFI for fictional universe terms of use in at least three fictional universes.

(I should have been more specific previously; it's not that I'm opposed to manga or anime as a genre, though I am quite unfamiliar with this area. My concern is rather that many of these anon IP user terms from manga and anime come from only one fictional universe.) -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 04:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I have googled the term. It seems to be used in the ninja manga カムイ伝 and then adopted by Naruto. The standard word for the weapon is 棒手裏剣, which we already have. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 09:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)