The Calligrapher — Sūn Guòtíng 孙过庭

Tang cursive master and author of the key treatise 'Shu Pu'.

Tang calligrapher (约646–691), master of cursive script — known for 《书谱》. Tang dynasty

Etymology & Meaning · 字义溯源

2 · The Character: 又 Yòu (4th tone). The Shuowen: 「又，手也。象形。三指者，手之多略不過三也」 — 'the hand,' drawn as a right hand with three fingers (the old form of 右, 'right'). From 'hand' came the adverb 'again / and': 《詩·鄭風·緇衣》「敝予又改為兮」 (yet again I have it remade), and 《詩·小雅·小宛》「天命不又」 (Heaven's mandate does not come again). So 又 means repetition, addition, 'and also.' As a tattoo it is a grammatical word — light and connective, not a noun-idea. Alone it reads as 'again,' which can feel incomplete. Pair it inside a phrase — 又日新 (anew each day) — for a complete thought. Element tables assign Earth (土).

Cultural Story

又 was a hand, and then "again". Laozi called the mystery "darkened into the dark -- 玄之又玄, the gate of all wonders". The graph traced a hand that reaches once more. In the histories it marks the second of a pair of deeds; in letters 又及 adds a line after the close. The word is the smallest record of repetition.

Where a Western reader can stand: Sun Guoting (c. 646–691) was a Tang official who died around forty, yet left the Shu Pu — the single most important essay on calligraphy, written in his own flowing cursive. His 又 therefore comes from the scroll that has been the standard model for learning cursive for thirteen centuries: a hand a specialist recognises as correct, expressive but unmistakably literate. For 'again / and,' his disciplined, Wang-tradition cursive gives you a 又 that reads as elegant connection rather than a stray mark — pair it inside a phrase (又日新) and it becomes 'renewed each day.'

Common words & phrases

• 又及 postscript · P.S.
• 又称 also called · aka
• 又要 again want · also need
• 又一次 once again

Read the story behind the character

A letter ends with 又及, a postscript dashed off. A shop sign says the brand is 又称 by another name in the south. A delayed train is 又一次 disappointment this month. The word ticks the count of repeats -- of things done again, of names that double, of the extra note scrawled beneath the signature. It is the quiet adverb of recurrence in speech and in print.

Why this character belongs on skin

又 is a hand — the right hand, the one that reaches, repeats, insists. The old pictograph is just a fist with the thumb out, the hand that acts again and again. It also means 'again,' and there is the whole philosophy: life is the same hand doing the same necessary thing one more time. We romanticize the first time, the debut, the spark. But 又 is the second time and the hundredth, the loyalty of repetition. To carry it is to honor the gesture you keep making — the call, the apology, the practice, the return. There is a tenderness in 'again' that 'forever' never catches; forever is a promise, again is a fact. This is the mark for the person who came back. Ink it where your own hand can find it, a small acknowledgment that love and craft are mostly the same muscle moving once more than you thought you could. The hand does not ask why. It simply reaches.