Suki-ma
Suki-ma is a native Japanese word meaning 'gap'
or 'crevice' that wind, water, or light might come through. It is made
up of suki 'crevice, gap', and ma
'space', and is written in Chinese characters as   .
The character ,
however, is of reasonable difficulty. Coupled with the fact that this is a native
Japanese word (kun-reading) and not a Chinese-style compound (on-reading),
there is a tendency to write suki-ma wholly or
partly in hiragana. Take the following example:
Go-zonji desu ka. Suki-ma kara shinobi-komu shigaisen
ni wa yō chūi.
Did you know? You have to be careful of UV rays that steal through crevices. |
A Google search in August 2003 revealed the following rather confused picture
concerning the use of kanji and kana:
Katakana 
is used in specialised or abstract contexts, e.g. the 'niche' in 'niche industry'.
The form  
is based on the verb suku 'to be transparent,
see through'. (Note the form ,
an erroneous form based on the judgement that an optional can
be inserted here. This is not the case here as the character suki is
used for the noun only and cannot be used for the verb suku.)
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