From: chriskern99@gmail.com   
      
   On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 09:26:30 -0400, Sunnie    
   posted the following:   
      
   >Except for the dictionaries I used. ^_-  The Random House   
   >Japanese-English, English Japanese dictionary has no listing of the word...   
      
   Well, I guess I meant any dictionary that has the word in it will give   
   it the definition of "moonlight".  Because it's a semi-archaic or   
   poetic word it's not going to be in more "basic" dictionaries.   
      
   Perhaps the misconception that the word "literally" means "moon   
   shadow" started when someone attempted to look up the word in a   
   dictionary and didn't find it, so then tried to look up the initial   
   parts and came up with "moon shadow" (or "shade"), not realizing that   
   the word had been created in a period of older Japanese when "kage"   
   had a primary meaning of "light coming from an object".   
      
   >Although now that I looked it up in Jim Breen's online one using only   
   >kanji, I get it but with a different reading, getsuei.   
      
   "getsuei" is another reading for the word but "tsukikage" would have   
   been the original word, with "getsuei" only developing as an alternate   
   pronunciation later, after the writing system had been introduced from   
   China.   
      
   >  Using tsukikage   
   >in hiragana, I got nothing.   
      
   That's strange; it comes up for me.   
      
   -Chris   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)