Language Log

The "what we do" page for the  CANTWINVICTORYFUND starts by explaining that they "Run Cant-idates to lose spectacularly in gerrymandered districts".

Xi Jinping.

There are countless online suggestions for how to pronounce the name of the Great Helmsman.  Most of them are well intended, but I fear that so far they have failed.  People who are well informed about Chinese affairs still murder the Paramount Leader's name.  So as not to muddy the waters, I will give a completely non-technical transcription.  No phonology, no semantics, no frills.

What I'm going to suggest on the next page is intended for the English-speaking layperson who has no specialized knowledge of Chinese language.  It will not be exactly the same as Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) spoken by a native, but it will get you close — sans tones, which would take a long time to explain and practice

Remember, there are countless Sinitic topolects, dialects, and idiolects, and endless variations even among MSM speakers.  Be confident.  If you pronounce the Paramount Leader's name the way I advise on the next page, any well-disposed/intended speaker of MSM will understand whom you're referring to.

Oh, by the way, if you haven't formally studied Mandarin and try to pronounce the "X" in some linguistically sophisticated way, you will most likely miserably fail.

Don't try to make it fancy or exotic.

Pronounce the words the way you would in English.

Here goes:

Imagine running propaganda and forgetting to blur the Top Gun logo. Peak CCTV. Even the Chinese can’t bear to see it! #TopGun pic.twitter.com/p0gs5X1MK7

— The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动 (@TGTM_Official) September 23, 2025

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-sixty-sixth issue:

“Relations between Persia and Central Asia in Antiquity: An Examination of the Written Sources,” by Yu Taishan. (pdf)

Liam Julian, "Putting Fowler back in Fowler's" (Hoover Institution, 2009) presents a perspective that used to be more common that it is today, I think: linguistic prescriptivism as (a particular kind of) cultural conservatism, in explicit association with right-wing politics. Julian wrote:

Burchfield, in his preface to Fowler’s third edition, called the first edition “this extraordinary book, the Bible of presciptivists.” But in the early 20th century, when Fowler was writing the extraordinary book, the trend was away from prescriptivism and toward a descriptive, academic linguistics that, like Burchfield himself, observed rather than decreed.1 Burchfield stressed the extent of “the isolation of Fowler from the mainstream of the linguistic scholarship of his day” and highlighted “his heavy dependence” on English school textbooks and the classics of ancient Greece and Rome, the Renaissance, and post-Renaissance English literature. For Fowler, Burchfield wrote, these influences composed “a three-colored flag” that “was to be saluted and revered, and, as far as possible, everything it represented was to be preserved intact.”

A road sign at the Gwadar Free Zone, operated by China Overseas Ports
Holding Company, in Gwadar, Balochistan, Pakistan. This port is a crucial part
of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. (Photograph dated July 4, 2018)

From AntC:

Kid's T-shirt in a Carrefour, downtown Taichung. (I think an English-speaking kid wouldn't be seen dead in it.)    [VHM:  American English:  "wouldn't be caught dead" — usually, in my experience]

"China changed village names 'to erase Uyghur culture'", Anna Lamche, BBC (6/20/24)

I thought about this phenomenon again today, a year after that BBC article was published, because this morning Robert Thurman, the Columbia Tibetologist, told me about his concept of "ethnicide".  This, forced name changes, is one way to do it.

China has changed the names of hundreds of villages in Xinjiang region in a move aimed at erasing Uyghur Muslim culture, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

According to a report by the group, hundreds of villages in Xinjiang with names related to the religion, history or culture of Uyghurs were replaced between 2009 and 2023.

Words such as "sultan" and "shrine" are disappearing from place names – to be replaced with terms such as "harmony" and "happiness", according to the research, which is based on China's own published data.

I don't know why, but the first time I came upon this marvelous site, in Mark's March 5, 2021 post, it didn't make much of an impression on me.  Maybe I was too busy to explore it at that time or was just not in the right mood.  Four days ago, however, when my old Peace Corps buddy, Bob Kambic, called it to my attention, Radio Garden just blew my mind away.  I kept exclaiming, "This is the most exciting, happiest day of my life!"

On first blush, I thought perhaps the person pictured had a double chin, and by cropping the photo this way they were trying to hide it.  On second blush, it was clear that they had misinterpreted the name of the famous 2nd c. statesman, general, and poet, Cao Cao 曹操 (ca. 155-220 AD).

Most of the population of China cannot afford or obtain a VPN (Virtual Private Network).  For the privileged portion who do manage to purchase and install a VPN, does that solve their global internet access problem?

Some people claim that, with a good VPN, you can see anything on the global internet in China.  But I don't think that's quite true.  Sometimes I direct my students (all of whom have VPNs) to various Wikipedia and Wiktionary articles, and they say, "Sorry, Prof. Mair, I can't access that in China" (blocked without warning or explanation twenty-some years ago*).  The problem is even more acute with YouTube.

YouTube has all sorts of stuff:  richly informative, inflammatory, educational, political, DIY, linguistic, etc., etc.  Practically anything one can imagine, except probably outright pornography.  The Chinese government is deathly afraid that its citizens might see YouTube content that is critical of Xi Jinping, the CCP, and so forth.  So YouTube is a no-no, and that means nature films, music, poetry, art, archeology, chemistry, physics, recipes, Chinese / Japanese / Indian / Iranian / etc. culture.  How impoverished the Chinese people are because of the benighted policies of their government!  The nearly 15 BILLION videos on YouTube are off limits to Chinese citizens.  And that's just YouTube.  Think of all the internet riches that are unavailable to the people of China.  No wonder so many of them are desperate to go abroad to study where they have free access to the internet.

This is an odd-looking word that I encounter fairly frequently, especially in my publishing ventures.  Since I don't understand how / why "queue" should be pronounced like "cue", which is also a variant spelling for the same word, I'm especially cautious about "queue" when I approach it.  Moreover, since I'm steeped in pinyin, I'm tempted to pronounce "queue" as "chyueyue" (!).  Consequently, I always have to slow down when I spell / type it:  "q-u-e-u-e", which I seldom have to do with other words except "Cincinnati", which I still haven't mastered.

Other than "its / it's", "queue" is probably the most frequently misspelled word I know of, even among educated persons.

I also am somewhat perplexed why "queue" means both "line" and "tail".

The word "queue" is used to mean a line, particularly in British English, because of its etymological origins. "Queue" comes from the French word "queue," meaning "tail," which in turn comes from the Latin word "cauda," also meaning "tail". This connection to "tail" makes sense when visualizing a line of people or objects, as they often form a linear arrangement reminiscent of a tail. The term "queue" is also used in computing to refer to a data structure where items are processed in a first-in, first-out (FIFO) manner, similar to how people are served in a line.

(AIO)

Complaint upheld against Belgian ticket inspector who said ‘bonjour’ in Flanders
Ilyass Alba also said ‘goeiedag’ on train in Dutch-speaking region but he breached country’s strict language rules
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels, The Guardian (16 Jul 2025)

Go figure!  The train was in Flanders and nearing Brussels, which is officially bilingual.