Inspired by Mark Forsyth's talk on 6 Dec., I think of that one can observe Chinese is a dry nation through its character of drunkenness, “醉“, where the left part “酉” is the utensil to make wine and the right part “卒” is dead……(“卒” can also refer to "graduation", but this meaning is developed much later, just in the recent centuries) I also have a dim memory that the root character of “酉” is some utensil used exclusively on religious ceremony. If so, the Chinese character for wine, “酒”, can also reflect its spiritual function, that is to connect gods (the ancestors' soul).
Another Chinese character I always feel uncomfortable to use is “屋”, which nowadays simply means "house". It, however, originally means "mortuary" in the age of oracle bone script. This is actually quite straightforward from the structure as the upper part "尸" is "corpse" and "至" is "arrive"; putting together, it is "the place where corpse arrives at"...But no one cares anyway.
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