Non-defined flower
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This is a recent instagram post of the Vietnamese singer Suni Ha Linh.
The translation is accurate.
búbèi dìngyì de huā
不被定义的花
"undefined flower(s) / non-defined flower(s) / flower(s) that is/are not defined"
Who knows what she meant? Unspecified? Random?
Selected readings
- "Off my head there is a path" (2/4/11)
- "Tiny grass is dreaming" (5/24/12)
- "Getting off with your lover" (10/13/13)
[Thanks to Alex Baumans]
Laura Morland said,
April 25, 2024 @ 4:55 pm
Well, it's not what SHE meant, right, but rather why the owner of the flower shop (she used as a backdrop) chose that name?
I suppose the shop offers flowers of all sorts, not limited to commonly-named flowers?
On second thought maybe you're right, and Suni Ha Linh chose that backdrop because she feels herself to be non-specific flower?
It is an amusing translation, even though accurate.
KevinM said,
April 25, 2024 @ 5:32 pm
Perhaps some implication that here you can obtain any sort of flower you like?
CyndyN said,
April 25, 2024 @ 7:18 pm
A flower that declines categorization? A flower that chooses to be just the way it is?
AntC said,
April 25, 2024 @ 7:35 pm
Swiftie flower shop
The Tortured Poets Department Floral Designs
Warning: unapologetic fan merchandise; we do not endorse these products.
Phil H said,
April 26, 2024 @ 1:54 am
Yeah, from a Chinese perspective it's what Cyndy says: Flowers that refuse to be pigeonholed.
I dunno if in the Vietnamese context it might have a different meaning? Do Vietnamese speakers still recognise enough characters to even look at the Chinese name of the shop?
Alex B said,
April 26, 2024 @ 4:46 am
@ Phil H
She repeated the name of the shop in English and Chinese in her comment by the post, so it is intentional.
Nat said,
April 26, 2024 @ 5:29 am
A nice ascriptional paradox. Not a statement, so neither true nor false; but an apt description if and only if it’s inaccurate.
Philip Taylor said,
April 26, 2024 @ 4:29 pm
Totally OT, but …
When my desktop browser failed to display the (presumably intended) image of Suni Hạ Linh, I took no notice, thinking that this was just some artifact of Instagram with which I need not be concerned. However, when I happened to look at the same page in my mobile telephone browser and found that the image rendered as presumably intended, I felt obliged to investigate further and saw that the image should have come via an <svg> element. The DOCTYPE of the page, however, was for HTML 4.01 Transitional, which has no <svg> element, and at that point I became more than a little concerned. I then found that when the page is subjected to W3C HTML validation, it fails with 84 errors, and three warnings.
Now I fully appreciate that although the page is apparently hosted by the University of Pennsylvania it is not necessarily using an infrastructure developed there, but I do feel that no matter what infrastructure the University elects to use, it should at least ensure that pages developed using that infrastructure is fully W3C compliant. Would it be possible for the moderators of Language Log to draw this to the attention of the University web team and ask whether the site could possibly be migrated to a fully compliant infrastucture ?