乙
← →
fish guts
On-Yomi: オツ、イツ — Kun-Yomi: おと-、きのと
Elements:
fishguts, fishhook
Heisig story:
The kanji shown here actually represents the "second" position in the old Chinese zodiac, which the Japanese still use as an alternate way of enumeration, much the same way that English will revert to Roman numerals. Among its many other meanings are "pure," "tasteful," "quaint," and - get this! - fish guts. Since it is a pictograph of a fishhook, it should not be hard to associate it with the key word.
Heisig comment:
* We will keep fishhook as the primitive meaning. Its shape will rarely be quite the same as that of the kanji. When it appears at the bottom of another primitive, it is straightened out, almost as if the weight of the upper element had bent it out of shape. And when it appears to the right of another element, the short horizontal line that gets the shape started is omitted and it is stretched out and narrowed, all for reasons of space and aesthetics. Examples follow.
Koohii stories:
1) [Jeremy] 11-7-2006(113): This is a fish hook, that pulls out the fishguts.
2) [bakamono] 20-8-2007(41): You cut a fish in a z shape on the belly to make it easier to open the fish and rip out its fish guts silly!
3) [Danieru] 3-11-2007(35): "Knife goes in, guts come out" (-Bart Simpson's mantra as he guts fish in "30 Minutes Over Tokyo"). To be more specific: first, cut a 乙 -shape in the belly of the fish, second, pull the fishguts out. (Note that the most common meaning of this kanji is not 'fishguts' as Heisig connotates, but 'second').
4) [Cruger] 26-7-2008(25): Fishgutz.
5) [GrimPanda] 21-9-2010(18): Really this will rarely be seen as fishguts as a Kanji, usually it's 2nd party, or latter, generally always meaning 2nd in some way. It's easy to remember this as "2nd" since it looks like a 2. Then just remember it's a fishhook primitive like any other kanji that changes it's meaning as a primitive.