Character-shape wordplay
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[This is a guest post by David Moser]
I happened to notice the following bit of character-shape play on a YouTube site called "Wen Zhao tangu lunjin" 《文昭谈古论今》。 He's talking about the tourists on Hainan island who were stuck there after a sudden Covid breakout. In expressing the observation that these sudden incidents occur time and time again, he used a four-character phrase that is evidently a new Internet slang, 又双叒叕 yòu shuāng ruò zhuó, in which each subsequent character adds another 又 component, a visual representation of the concept "over and over again".
这7天中要进行5次核算检查，都隐性才能够离（海南）岛。所以大家看，魔幻现实是不是又双叒叕上演了？
Here it is in traditional characters where the wordplay breaks down because 双 is written 雙.
這7天中要進行5次核算檢查，都隱性才能夠離（海南）島。所以大家看，魔幻現實是不是又雙叒叕上演了？
Transcription:
Zhè 7 tiān zhòng yào jìnxíng 5 cì hésuàn jiǎnchá, dōu yǐnxìng cái nénggòu lí (Hǎinán) dǎo. Suǒyǐ dàjiā kàn, móhuàn xiànshí shì bùshì yòu shuāng ruò zhuó shàngyǎnle?
Translation:
These 7 days 5 nucleic acid tests are required, and only if all five test results are negative will they be allowed to leave the island. So you see, this "magical realism" scenario is played out again and again? (又双叒叕上演了)
Selected readings
- David Moser, "Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard" (html), pinyin.info, readings; (简体字：为什么中文这么TM难？) (繁體字：為什麼中文這麼TM難？); from Schriftfestschrift: Essays on Writing and Language in Honor of John DeFrancis on His Eightieth Birthday (Sino-Platonic Papers (pdf) No. 27, August 1991), edited by Victor H. Mair.
- David Moser, A Billion Voices: China's Search for a Common Language (Penguin, 2016)
- "The future of Chinese language learning is now" (4/5/14)
Stephen L said,
August 13, 2022 @ 7:49 am
Interesting!
A few months ago I did a search of a big corpus of Literary Chinese poetry to look for poems which feature the same component repeated a lot (measured in various ways), and overall nothing really jumped out. It seems from my quick search that visual repetition isn't so much part of the tradition? Another problem is that I'm still learning Chinese and haven't even tried to decypher them yet, but for anyone interested:
This poem has a lot of trees 木:
丘木森森已十圍，
滿林清蔭可棲依。
每憂樵牧傷松柏，
游宦三年兩度歸。
This poem has a lot of gates 門:
山從開闢以來有，
關是王公設險名。
直上劍門千萬仞，
中開門闕數重城。
(some others listed here – https://gist.github.com/increpare/1a9f9834f9dfc9e37bf905692668365c badly labled – some featured becasue of having repeated components, some because their characters have especially few/many strokes). If anyone has suggestions/wants clarification I can run the searches again/new searches.
Francesca Valli said,
August 13, 2022 @ 8:16 am
You say ‘ Here it is in traditional characters where the wordplay breaks down because 双 is written 雙’. What do you mean? The component 又 is there is the traditional character too.
Martin said,
August 13, 2022 @ 9:30 am
I have only the most superficial knowledge of Chinese, but wondered why the writer chose to write 7 instead of "七" and 5 instead of "五".
Thomas said,
August 13, 2022 @ 10:19 am
Shouldn't the negative test result be written “阴性” instead of “隐性”?
David Moser said,
August 14, 2022 @ 9:29 am
@Stephen L
Very nice! Thanks for the github examples. I'm sure there are countless examples out there.
David said,
August 17, 2022 @ 1:21 pm
@Martin Using Chinese numerals instead of Hindu-Arabic has a more formal, literary feel. It's very similar to the feel of spelling numbers out in English, except that a lot of English speakers find Hindu-Arabic numerals overly informal for numbers less than or equal to ten, whereas I don't think that's true in Chinese.