石

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stone

On-Yomi: セキ、シャク、コク — Kun-Yomi: いし

Elements:

stone, cliff, mouth

Heisig story:

With a mouth under a cliff, what else could we have here but the entrance to a secret cavern, before which a great stone has been rolled so that none may enter. Perhaps it is the hiding place where Ali Baba and his band of thieves have stored their treasures, in which case that magic word known to every school child who ever delighted over the tales of the Arabian Nights should be enough to push the stone aside. But take care - the cliff is steep, and one slip will send you tumbling down into the ravine below. This is the one and only time that the second stroke in cliff will reach over to the middle of the horizontal stroke. If you think of the edge jutting outwards (in keeping with the story above), the problem should be taken care of.

Heisig comment:

* The stone is a quite common primitive element, which is not restricted to great boulders but used of stones or rocks of any size or shape.

Koohii stories:

1) [Ninjasha] 31-12-2007(142): Indiana Jones jumps up and grabs the lip of cliff just in time to evade the huge STONE rolling out of the mouth of the cave!

2) [Nayelianne] 19-9-2008(37): There's a VERY simple way to remember this, in case the cliff thing isn't working for you… Just see it as a stone [いし] being hammered by a miner searching for jewel stones [ほうせき] ;).

3) [Uli_S] 4-9-2009(33): If you pick the right stone, and hit the kanji 右 right on its head really hard, you can chip off the upper stroke from it.

4) [ssavage2004] 20-8-2006(22): A mouth (#11 口) open beneath a cliff is bound to swallow some stone.

5) [zer0range] 19-3-2009(14): A stone covers the entrance to a cave hidden under a cliff.

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