'Warm Tips' in the wild
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After having been away for a couple of months, when I returned home, I found this message from Maia Karpovich:
Yesterday, I ordered some 100 watt 'corn bulbs' from Amazon to deal with the darkness in my bedroom. The box came with some 'warm tips' included as an insert.
To boot, the term 'corn bulb' is interesting linguistically as it has a double meaning–seemingly derived from the original 'chip on board' (CoB) LED arrays used in them, as well as the resemblance of the yellow LED packages on a cylindrical housing to a corn cob. In fact, the older through-mount LEDs bore even more resemblance to corn kernels.
Maia seems to have been attracted by the "warm tips" on the box, a sure sign that Chinglish is lurking nearby, even though there may be no Chinese characters visible, as also here:
Warm-tip
byu/ice-drake inengrish
We have encountered the Chinese expression that is behind "warm tip" before. It is:
Wēnxīn tíshì 溫馨提示 ("gentle reminder") (see "Selected readings" below)
I was more interested in the trademark Fannicoo, which belongs to a company in Shenzhen that offers the following goods and services:
Baby bottle sterilizers; Barbecues and grills; Bath installations; Electric food warmers; Electric torches for lighting; Germicidal lamps for purifying air; Household air cleaners; Lamp bulbs; Lamps; LED luminaires; Light reflectors; Lighting apparatus for vehicles; Lighting apparatus, namely, lighting installations; Rear lights for vehicles; Toilet seats
(source)
Sometimes the company parse-spells its name as "FanNicoo" and sometimes only has one "o" at the end but mostly "oo", even in the same document. I fell into half a dozen rabbit holes in search of the company's Chinese name, but gave up after half an hour.
Selected readings on "warm tips"
- "Warm tip" (1/23/16)
- "Beginning of the Semester Blues" (9/5/10)
- "Warm Notice" (5/27/14)
Neil Dolinger said,
November 24, 2024 @ 11:14 am
I’m intrigued by the several nautical terms that appear in the “warm tips”. Maybe someone could find and share. the original Chinese text.
Victor Mair said,
November 24, 2024 @ 12:54 pm
@Neil Dolinger
I thought they were instructions for an electric-powered model boat.
Daniel Barkalow said,
November 25, 2024 @ 2:58 pm
I think "friendly reminders" as an idiomatic translation might work to explain how "warm tips" is conceptually intended but not the right English synonyms to let people know. Although I do wonder whether the translation has been biased by the idiom "hot tips" as something this information could be construed as a less-extreme form of.
BZ said,
November 26, 2024 @ 10:38 am
According to the China Trademark Office the Chinese name of the company is 深圳市范尼克科技有限公司. I cannot read or speak Chinese, but the above seems to be the boilerplate name of many such companies "Shenzhen City XX Technology Co., Ltd." where XX is 范尼克 (Fannico or Fàn ní kè) in this case, so it seems like the name was transliterated from English.