Nuance differences between the kanji for ぐあい, 具合 and 工合


Usually I read ぐあい as 具合 but recently I was reading a some Japanese literature
and the 工合 version of the kanji was used.

For reference the literature:

> 脳味噌の中心にヒリヒリと焦げ付く位である。それでいて、あとから考えるとその興味の焦点と、自分の心理の結ばり **工合{ぐあい}**
> がサッパリわからない。探偵趣味で惹き付けられたのか、猟奇趣味で読まされたのか、わからない場合が非常に多い。

I’m guessing it means something along the lines of ‘way’ however I am unsure.

Is there a difference in meaning or nuance between the two? If so when and
where do you split the usages?




Japanese dictionaries give both orthographies as equivalent [1]. The word is
Japanese, and with an unknown etymology [ibid.], so both orthographies are
examples of 当て字. (In fact, the original pronunciation was ぐわい, with the わい >
あい change emerging by analogy with the word 合.)

The graphical word is unknown to the Chinese language in either form [2], not
defined by Morohashi [3], hence a jukujikun-style borrowing of the existing
Chinese word is impossible. This puts any idea about the shades of meaning
being differentiated under question, as such cases are normally applied when
several _existing_ Chinese words get matched to a single Japanese.

Thus, we only have to establish which is the more prominent orthography.
Statistically [4], 具合い and 具合 are equally prominent, but the other versions
appear disappearingly rarely. According to [5], for each 87.1% of 工合 with
furigana ぐあい there is 12.9% of 具合, which means that the spelling 工合 is much
more prone to be furigana-ed and thus less ordinary.

To conclude: both forms are as equivalent as various 当て字 of the same word can
be; however, 工合 is disappearingly rare as opposed to 具合, and it is the latter
that should be defaulted to.

[1] 日本国語大辞典.

[2] Absent in 漢語大詞典.

[3] 大漢和辞典.

[4] kanshudo.com.

[5] furigana.info.

