Language Log

We've looked at the Chinese of the first item en passant before (here), but not in detail, and the English of this version merits investigation:

From the menu of a Chinese restaurant in Eden Prairie, MN:

A Facebook post sent to me by shaing tai:

Lord knows we've encountered many bizarre translations and explanations of the much maligned Mandarin term, weiji (see "Selected readings") below, but this is one of the weirdest crosslingual definitions that has ever come to my attention:

Suicide is usually an attempt to deal with a crisis.  The Chinese character for "crisis" translates into "dangerous opportunity."    Suicide is a permanent solution, and eliminates other options.  So if you're hurting so much that you are willing to pass the pain on to those who care, perhaps you could use this dangerous opportunity to try some other options first.

(Source:  Hannah Zeavin, The Distance Cure:  A History of Teletherapy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2021), ch. 5, p. 178)

I spotted this not-too-old post on Stephen Jones: a blog, "Interpreting pinyin" (10/9/17).

Schematic map of bus stops in the vicinity of Lingnan University, Tuen Mun (below Castle Peak), Hong Kong.  Note the tenth stop outbound, which is "Handsome Court" (to be explained below):

Shared by Tuomas in Shaanxi, China:

Sign at a hotel in Japan:

Victor Steinbok said that he found this on Wish:

From the Engrish in Japan Facebook page, posted by Yukie Masumoto:

source:  Taobao 淘寶

The Shanghai language and linguistics journal (some say it's a literary journal — I think it's none of these three "l's", but more of a sociopolitical magazine), Yaowen Jiaozi*, announced China's hottest words of the year.  

Leading the list is the amazing term "xīnzhì shēngchǎnlì 新质生产力" ("new quality productivity").  Naturally, it was coined by President Xi Jinping.

[It] captures a key shift in the nation's economic characters. This concept represents not just a leap in production methods, but a transformation toward technology-driven, high-quality growth. It's a language reflecting China's stride into an era of digital innovation.

[quoting "World's top words define essence of 2023", by Yang Jian, Shine (12/6/23), which is also the source of the other quotations in this post]