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for foreign place names; such as in the ateji used to write "Asia". The original ateji word is now considered archaic, but the character '?' has gained the meaning "Asia" in such compounds as , even though '?' originally meant "sub-par" (and continues to). From the ateji , the second character was taken, resulting in the semi-formal coinage , which literally translates to "rice country" but means "United States of America"; however,

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