Language Log

The diabolo, sometimes called a Chinese yo-yo, is a two-headed top controlled by a string manipulated by two sticks, one attached to each end.  It is popular among jugglers.

Diabolo, commonly misspelled as diablo, was formerly also known as "the devil on two sticks" (Juggling Wiki).

In this post, I am concerned primarily with language issues and will not attempt to disentangle (if you've ever played much with a yo-yo, you'll be sensitive to this term in the present context) the evolution, relationship, and nature of the diabolo and the yo-yo.

I will begin by providing a few more or less random historical and cultural notes (the history of the diabolo / yo-yo is vastly complex), then move on to etymological observations.

"Earliest Record of Diabolo in the Chinese Classic – 帝京景物略"

International Jugglers Association (4/26/23)

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Dìjīng jǐngwù lüè. Juǎn èr. Chūn chǎng”/ Liú Dòng, Yú Yìzhèng hézhù (1635 nián):  Yángliǔer huó, chōu tuóluó. Yángliǔer qīng, fàngkōng zhong. Yángliǔér sǐ, tī jiànzi

《帝京景物略．卷二．春場》/ 劉侗、於奕正合著 (1635年

楊柳兒活，抽陀螺。楊柳兒青，放空鐘。楊柳兒死，踢毽子。

“Whipping the top in the time willows revive; Playing the diabolo in the time willows green; Kicking the shuttlecock in the time willows wither.” – Imperial Capital Guidebook (1635 A.D.), Volume 2/ (translated by Mark Tsai)

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Source: China Media Project (12/7/2022)
THE CMP DICTIONARY: Socialite 媛
By XINYU DENG

Once signifying graceful women of a distinguished background, the term “socialite,” or yuan (媛), has in recent years become a misogynistic umbrella term used on digital platforms in China to disparage women who advertise fancy lifestyles. The term has also been used by state-run media to roundly criticize perceived materialistic excesses, reinforcing their unfair association with femininity.

The Chinese word yuàn (媛) has traditionally referred to the “virtuous and comely woman” as mentioned in the Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字), a Chinese dictionary compiled in the Han dynasty. Since 2020, however, the word has rapidly evolved — or perhaps devolved — into a catchall word used on the Chinese internet, and also in state media, to denigrate modern-day beauties as disgraceful and degenerate.

In November, 2021, a small paperback published in Japan was selling well and causing a buzz among the twitterati. Here's the listing on Amazon (note the cover illustration).  The author acknowledges that he followed the style of (the Japanese translation of) A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome by Italian paleontologist, writer, and journalist, Alberto Angela, but the book is obviously the result of decades of data collection from the Chinese classics, as the endnotes (about 900 of them), ranging from Shǐjì 史記 (The Grand Scribe's Records; ca. 91 BC), Hàn shū 漢書 (Book of Han; 111 AD), Zhuāng Zǐ 荘子 (Wandering on the Way; 4th c. BC), Hán Fēi Zǐ 韓非子 (Master Han Fei; d. 233 BC) to Tàipíng Yùlǎn 太平御覧 (Imperial Reader of the Taiping Era; 977-983), show, supporting every bit of the statement in the text, a feature not found in Angela's above work (as far as I see in the French translation at hand). It is no wonder that the author reportedly received an immediate offer of Chinese translation from a Chinese publisher.

As the S2O website explains,

“Subscribe to Open” (S2O) is a pragmatic approach for converting subscription journals to open access—free and immediate online availability of research—without reliance on either article processing charges (APCs) or altruism. […]

S2O allows publishers to convert journals from subscriptions to OA, one year at a time. Using S2O, a publisher offers a journal’s current subscribers continued access. If all current subscribers participate in the S2O offer (simply by not opting out) the publisher opens the content covered by that year’s subscription. If participation is not sufficient—for example, if some subscribers delay renewing in the expectation that they can gain access without participating—then that year’s content remains gated.

The offer is repeated every year, with the opening of each year’s content contingent on sufficient participation. In some cases, access to backfile content may be used to enhance the offer.

Important archeological news from Tainan:

South Taiwan park renovation project paused after archaeological artifacts unearthed

 Artifact pieces belonging to neolithic Niuchouzi Culture discovered, date back to 3000-4500 years ago.

By Stephanie Chiang, Taiwan News (2/26/23)

The nature of this culture is intriguing in that one of its most distinctive features is the red cord-marked pottery that has been found at the Wangliao archeological site in Tainan’s Yongkang park.

The dating roughly corresponds to the estimated beginning of the diversification of Proto-Austronesian (PAN / PAn).

Today's Tank McNamara:

From the Facebook account of Mei Han:

If one has a knee-jerk reaction to attribute all distant cultural resemblances to chance coincidence (independent invention), that would be to make a mockery of human mobility and adaptability.  It would be as if people never deigned or had the opportunity to borrow something from another group.

I can give hundreds of long distance cultural correspondences that could not possibly have been due to chance coincidence — so complicated, intricate, and exact are they, especially when accompanied by textual, artistic, and other types of evidence, much of it hard / material.  Moreover, we often have the bodies and the goods and the words — at transitional stages and times — to go along with the transmission.  For some examples, see the "Selected readings" below.  Many more could be adduced.

The struggle for cultural priority, supremacy, and naming between China and Korea is perennial:  fishing nets, printing with metal movable type, kimchi….  Now it's over the lunar new year that is currently being celebrated.

"NewJeans' Danielle apologizes for calling the 'Lunar New Year' 'Chinese New Year'"

Yaki-Jones, allkpop (1/21/23)

"Chinese netizens terrorize the Instagrams of Korean celebrities who gave lunar new year greetings, including IVE's Wonyoung and CL"

Yaki-Jones, allkpop (1/22/23)

Might be better to avoid the orthological controversy altogether and just refer to it as the Lunar New Year.

This is a clever attempt to write a spring couplet (chūnlián 春聯), not in the usual Sinoglyphs / Chinese characters, but in pictographs:

(source)

From Ellen Fleming, a reporter for WWLP22 in Chicopee, Massachusetts:

Sometimes that Boston accent slips out when you least expect it pic.twitter.com/urXO2xrQ6E

— Ellen Fleming (@EllenFlem) January 12, 2023

Ten days ago, Éric Freyssinet raised that question, which matters because Twitter might lose its immunity to libel suits under U.S. law if the company were acting as a publisher rather than as an "information service provider":

Any attempt to remove my tweets that link to my other social media accounts, not violating any law, would actually make #twitter an editorial media, and no longer a social media platform, with civil and criminal liability for *any* illegal content therein. https://t.co/kwoFHVue43

— Éric Freyssinet (@ericfreyss) December 18, 2022

(Here's an image of the tweet, in case Twitter is down…)

But this is Language Log, not Defamation Law Log, so the topic here is the singular phrase "an editorial media". And as usual, the point is not to complain but to inquire.

Here's a different take on "plastic" Chinese… Michell Quinn, "PNW Chancellor Keon apologizes for ‘offensive and insensitive’ remark during commencement", Chicago Tribune 12/14/2022:

Purdue University Northwest’s Chancellor Thomas Keon is apologizing for a culturally insensitive remark he made during the first of two commencement ceremonies Dec. 10.

The comment was a response after commencement keynote speaker Jim Dedelow finished his speech. Dedelow in his speech talked about a made-up language he created to entertain his new granddaughter and at one point used it to calm the baby from the stage when she squawked during his speech.

As Dedelow sat down, Keon came back to the podium and said, “Well, all I can say is,” and proceeded to speak in a made-up language that sounded as if he were trying to speak Chinese. He then said, “That’s sort of my Asian version of his …,” trailing off before going back on-script.

It wasn't really a "remark", in my opinion: