User talk:Daniel Berwick

This is really late, but it hurt my brain so much that I felt like dropping a note.

The reason that "The Art of War" is a suitable translation of something referring to 法 or whatnot is that "art", in English, most basically refers to skill or know-how, or a field of expertise. The notion that "art = making pretty pictures" is just the result of the term being used a LOT to refer to one particular kind of expertise. Anyway, the most basic sense of the name can be seen in other words using the same root, like "artisan" or "artifact". It's also why the "martial arts" are called that -- it's not because they're pretty or something; the equivalent term would be 武術 or 武芸 in Japanese (probably the same in Chinese?), meaning skill or proficiency in war. --GenkiNeko (talk) 07:08, 28 February 2009 (UTC)