淀屋橋

If you live in Japan then you can learn a lot just from studying the things that surround you each and every day. Every week on Tuesday and Thursday evenings I go to Osaka to teach salarymen English. Specifically I go to Yodoyabashi. I see the kanji for the place name twice a week but until now it has never occurred to me to spend a moment studying it!

淀屋橋 - The "ya" and "bashi" parts I'm familiar with. What does "yodo" mean? The first three strokes on the left denote "water" and the component parts on the right form the kanji below:

定　-　TEI - sada・meru, sada・maru - to fix, decide or settle.

Put them back together and you get:

淀 - TEN / DEN - yodo, yodo・mi, yodo・mu - pool, eddy...

The verb よどむ can mean to stagnate or to settle (in the form of sediment) or to stammer or falter in one's speech.

The noun よどみ can mean stagnation, sediment, a backwater, a pool or faltering speech.

よどみなくはなす　－　means to speak fluently without hesitation.

Presumably, Yodoyabashi was named in part after a standing body of water... But now when I go there and see the kanji I shall always remember how I too wish to よどみなくはなす when I speak Japanese.