Amazing Chinese Characters (446) Collect - 罗（羅）

 The shell bone script of character Collect is

The top on both scripts are net, the bottom is a bird. Ancient people used net to catch bird.

The bronze script of character Collect is

The top is net, the bottom is character Maintain (Post 92): a silk (left) rope ties a bird (right). The character means that people use rope and net to catch bird.

The big seal script of the character is

The top is character Net (Post 18), the bottom is character Maintain.

The small seal script of the character is

The top with the two long vertical side stokes is character Net, the rest inside is character Maintain. 

The clerical script of the character is 

The top is like character Four (四), but is a wrongly written of character Net (网), because it is similar to 四, people just tried to write quickly but made mistake.

The song typeface for traditional character is

羅

Almost same as cleric script.

The song typeface for simplified character is

罗

The top is 四，wrongly written for 网（Net) as I mentioned above, the bottom is character 夕 - Evening (Post 52). It may be in the evening to catch the birds by using net, which is reasonable because the birds can see in the evening, so easier to catch them. The simplification is based on a different view of this task, not simply reducing some strokes.

罗 is a popular family name too.

The pinyin of the character is Luo2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (445) Investigate - 究

 The big seal script of character Investigate is

The top 

is character of character Cave (Post 44)

the inside/bottom 

is character Nine (Post 443), means "a person kneeling down, and his head and arms stretching forward, searching something." Here is searching in a cave which is dark and small, people need to search inside carefully, like investigation.

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big seal script, the cave is deeper. 

The clerical script of the character is

The top Cave is shallow, the bottom Nine is changed but still some similarity to small seal script.

The song typeface of the character is

究

Same as clerical script.

究  means Investigate, Research, Study carefully, which is often used with 研（Grind, Post 444) to form a combination of words - 研究, which means Research, Study, most in academic, and scientific area. 研 means doing some fine work with patience, 究 means exploring new area and to find something new. Our research needs both the patience to keep doing good work and the courage to explore new area.

The Pinyin of the character is Jiu4.

Amazing Chinese Characters (444) Grind - 研

 The big seal script of character Grind is

The left is character Stone, the right 干干 means a mold, here is stone mortar. The character means using stone mortar to grind something. Chinese has used stone mortar to grind Chinese medicine for thousands years. 

This kind

or

This kind

The small seal script of the character is

Similar to big seal script.

The clerical script of the character is

The left  石 is character Stone, the right two 干s become 开, which is character Open. It should be a miswritten because there is no meaning of Open in this character.

The song typeface of the character is

研

Same as clerical script.

The Pinyin of the character is Yan2.

Amazing Chinese Characters (443) Nine - 九

 The shell bone script of character Nine

There are many explanations. 

1, an arm with a hand of person 

2, a brooked cave or hole

3, a kind of snake or dragon.

No matter what, most people agree that it explores an unknown area by reach as far as possible. I  prefer to the arm with open hand, trying to explore an unknown deep cave.  

The bronze script of the character is 

Which may be an arm, a snake or dragon, a hole, same as the shell bone script. 

To me which is like a person kneeling down, and his head and arms stretching forward, searching something.

The big seal script of the character

Similar to bronze script.

The small seal script of the character is

The left fork end is changed open asymmetric.

The clerical script of the character is

Similar to small seal script.

How could this character mean Nine later on?

Famous Chinese I Ching put 9 as the biggest number, reaching 9 is touching the end of something. Chinese believe that 9 is the highest position in nature. The end of a cave or hole is the most an explorer could reach, or the dragon is the powerful creature in the world, so the represent the biggest number 9.

I prefer to "A dragon with a fork alike head" as the original meaning of the character, which may be not right. 

The song typeface of the character is

九

Same as clerical script.

The Pinyin of 九 is Jiu3.