If you remove one stroke from the kanji for bird, [Tori] you would get the word for crow, [Karasu].

The stroke that got removed represents the eyes of the bird...

Because the crow's whole body is pitch black, that make it seem like it's got no eyes. That's why the word is written like that.

Heh~~

That's great!!

I always "keep an eye out" for good gag material, so that's the perfect kanji for me!! The idiom "me ga nai", literally "don't have eyes", means "to be very fond of/have a weakness for".

Better to keep an eye out for integrity.

Now go away.

Well, she does have a good nose for some things. Literally, "nukeme ha nai"", "not an eye that misses things".

When it comes to sniffing around for scoops.

Let's continue with the kanji for crow, [Karasu].

Since the cry of the bird (鳥) sounds like "gaw gaw", we assign it the kanji for "fang", (牙) [ga].

There are other kanji with similar derivations. Let's take cat, [Neko], and pigeon, [Hato], as an example.

We respectively assign the kanji for nine, (九) [Kuu] to "bird" to get "pigeon", which goes "coo coo", and the one for seedlings, (苗) [Nae], to "dog" to get "cat", which goes "nyaaa".

Because of that, if we were to merge the kanji for the noisy buzzing sound of an insect, (虫) [bunbun] with the word for literature, (文) [Aya], we will get...

Mosquito Ka

And it's irritating, just like Aya!

What an unexpected derivation for Aya!

I'm going to write an article about this!!