mountain / hill / anything that resembles a mountain / CL:座[zuo4] / bundled straw in which silkworms spin cocoons / gable
山
=
丨
+
凵
:
Mnemonic symbol: 山 looks like the tip of a fork. Sherlock Holmes (sh) is climbing a mountain (山) in front of the anthill (an1). He uses a dinosaur bone (〡) as walking stick, and to have better grip he attached a fork (山) to its tip. Unfortunately he accidentally sticks the fork into a receptacle (凵) on the ground of the mountain and gets shocked.
earth / ground / field / place / land / CL:片[pian4]
地
=
也
+
土
:
Dorothy Gale (di) hates the cleanliness of the space station, so she used an excavator (也) in the space station's bathroom (Ø4) to dig a pile of dirt (土) out of the ground (地) for a mud bath.