Language Log

In "Annals of literary vs. vernacular, part 2" (9/4/16), we saw how Chairman Xi badly bungled a literary quotation.  Now we find that, in the same speech, the Chairman may be said to have misinterpreted a literary term, qīngtán 清谈 ("pure conversation").

Hurricane Statement
Issued: 5:25 AM EDT Sep. 5, 2016 – National Weather Service

This product covers southern New England

Northeast wind gusts of 30 to 50 mph expected from 10 am to 8 PM this evening on the South Coast…

Tim Leonard is quite right to point out that when the National Weather Service refers to its storm warning announcement as a "product", that is nerdview.

It is a product only as viewed from within the staff of the NWS, where they would have no function and no jobs if they did not produce such things. For us out here in the weather, it is not a product, it is a warning.

Back in June, I started a post with this sample of quoted phrases:

"Ask the gays what they think and what they do"
"The Muslims have to work with us"
"I will be phenomenal to the women"
"I think the Mexicans are going to end up loving Donald Trump"
"I'm the only one in the world who can raise almost $6 million for the veterans"
"People don't know how well we're doing with the Hispanics, the Latinos,"
"Well, what do we do with BET? Over there, the whites don't get any nominations."
"I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks."

These are all attributed to Donald Trump, and this aspect of his approach to the English language has been widely noted (e.g. here).

I've got audio verification only for a few of these examples, but despite the notorious inaccuracy of journalistic quotations, I'm inclined to believe that Trump really does refer to groups of people as "the Xs" more often than other public figures do.

But where I got stuck, three months ago, was in figuring out what's wrong with that.

Adam Rosenthal told me in an email recently:

While trying to enter my address into American Airlines' horribly designed phone app, I was asked to wait, because "States/Provinces are still populating for the first time".

What the hell was going on? I'm sure you regular readers will be able to guess.

Misreading "agriculture" as "clothing"

This video of Chairman Xi making a horrendous gaffe was just posted on YouTube:

This is a quote from Mark Forsyth's book The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase. And Nicholas Feinberg asks

This claim seems iffy to me, but it's interesting – have you heard of this before? Do you know of anything related that I could read, or anyone else I should ask?

In "Hybrid writing in East Village, New York" (9/1/16), we looked at the playful combination of a Chinese character with Roman letters in the name of a Korean-Japanese restaurant, 木hursday, and we expanded our field of vision to encompass the names of the days of the week in languages across Eurasia.

Now Nathan Hopson takes us to Nagoya, Japan, where he spotted this fascinating take on the days of the week at Uni Mall, one of Nagoya's underground malls radiating off from the railway station.

Radio Free Asia has published an article about a wheelchair ridden human rights activist named Li Biyun:

"Rights Activist 'Takes Refuge' in U.S. Embassy in Beijing: Relatives" (9/1/16)

The article is accompanied by this extraordinary photograph:

Corey Williams, "Donald Trump to visit Detroit Saturday", AP:

For Trump, courting black voters is a challenge. Most polls show his support among black voters is in the low single digits. Many blacks view some of his campaign rhetoric as insulting, and racist.

"Donald Trump does not mean any black people any good," said Crystal Jackson, who has owned the C-Spot barbershop in northwest Detroit for the past seven years.

Carmen Lee sent in two items pertaining to Cantonese.

From Brendan Corney, a Chinese teacher in Melbourne, Australia, who relays a good anecdote of how bad character amnesia has gotten among native speakers:

Tal Kedem saw this sign the other day while walking with his son to a local playground.  It's for a newly opened restaurant on 9th street in New York's East Village.

The following article on an Australian website has a slip-up in the handling of an honorific in Indonesian / Javanese:

"Official Indonesian documentation has verified Mbah Gotho was born in 1870, making him the oldest person in the world" (SBS News, 8/31/16)

—–

At the reported age of 145, Mbah Gotho from the Indonesian island of Java could be the oldest person on the planet but he is not interested in celebrating.

“I only want to die,” he told Indonesian television station Liputan 6 in August in Sragen in Central Java.

… Mr Mbah said he has had a tombstone ready since 1992.