Language Log

Outside a hotel near Sanyi, Miaoli County, Taiwan:

The first four panels of yesterday's SMBC:

It's been a while since we have posted on this sub-genre of Chinglish:

My parents are touring China and spotted this very thoughtful sign…
byu/yumzau infunny

(reddit)

Sometimes the reason for too many (or too few) negations is an editing slip, and I'm guessing that this is an example. Fadel Allassan, "Appeals court denies Trump bid to shield records from Jan. 6 panel", Axios 12/9/2021:

In a 3-0 decision, Judge Patricia Ann Millett wrote that lawyers for Trump had not "provided no basis for this court to override President Biden's judgment" that the documents, held by the National Archives, should not be protected by executive privilege.

If you want to get an idea of what preoccupies Chinese people, one good way is to take a gander at current lingo. SupChina provides a convenient compilation from two authoritative sources.  In the past, I've been disappointed by many Chinese words of the year lists because they seemed to have been blatantly chosen by government bureaus with a political bias in mind.  The lists assembled below strike me as more genuine and less skewed toward the wishes of authorities.  That is to say, they match well with my own perception of what people are thinking and talking about on a daily basis, and the words they use to express themselves.  So here goes:

"China’s top buzzwords and internet slang of 2021"

Two year-end lists of popular slang words and internet catchphrases were published this week. The words offer a glimpse into what’s on the minds of Chinese internet users and Chinese government officials. Here are all 16 words on the lists.

Andrew Methven, SupChina (12/8/21)

The fact that four of the expressions appear on both lists is reassuring that they represent actual preferences of Chinese citizens.

Because of the scandal surrounding the illicit, involuntary relationship between female tennis star, Peng Shuai 彭帅, and top CCP official, Zhang Gaoli 张高丽, which became a hot button issue around the world beginning about a month ago, the Chinese government went into overdrive to censor all trace of it from the internet (see here).  The issue was particularly sensitive and embarrassing to the Communist Party because it rekindled the Me Too / #MeToo / #Mǐtù 米兔 ("Rice Bunny") movement (which the government had only with great difficulty tamped down a few years ago), led to the cancellation of the lucrative Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments in China, and is even threatening to cause a boycott of the upcoming winter Olymics, which would be utterly disastrous for the PRC.

The gross disparity between the absence of all mention of l'affaire Peng Shuai et Zhang Gaoli in China (indeed the disappearance of the star herself) and the raging indignation over it outside China led me to inquire of my friends in China what they were hearing about it sub / sotto voce.

All responses in this post are from Chinese citizens who must remain unidentified for fear of harsh government reprisals.

Below is a guest post by Bob Ladd.

For years I’ve been puzzled – or at least struck – by the fact that my (Italian) wife always refers to “Bob Kennedy” rather than “Bobby Kennedy” whenever he comes up in a conversation (his assassination was one of the first international political events she was really aware of).  Today it came up again because Beppe Severgnini (a prominent Italian journalist) wrote a piece in the Corriere della Sera about how RFK Jr. is a prominent anti-vax person.  So I thought about it again, and it occurred to me that maybe “Bob” is simply how he’s referred to in Italian.  Sure enough, in Severgnini’s piece he is referred to as “Bob”.

Cover page of a cookbook published in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:

The following article is a lucid and linguistically sound discussion concerning the nomenclature for the main non-Mandarin language of Taiwan:

"The Problem of Naming the Most Popular Non-Mandarin Language Used in Taiwan," 6 December 2021", by Hung-yi Chien.

Considering the balanced and fair presentation of the article overall, one wonders why it scrupulously avoids one of the most common ways of referring to the language in question, namely, "Hoklo".  For some reasons why people might wish to refrain from referring to the language in question as "Hoklo", see the very extensive presentation here.

Today's SMBC:

As part of their broad language policing, PRC authorities are cracking down on inappropriate monikers:

"No More ‘SissyGuy’ or ‘Douchebag1990’: Weibo Bans Usernames Containing ‘Bad’ Words:

Weibo users can clean up their usernames before December 8", Manye Koetse, What's on Weibo (12/1/21)

Weibo, which is China's version of Twitter, has a huge following and enormous influence, but, like everything on the Chinese internet, it is strictly censored and harshly controlled.  Now, in line with the recent announcement of the latest drastic language regulations, Weibo users must junk their naughty names.

This was posted yesterday evening by Liz Harrington, who regularly posts Donald Trump's "statements" on Twitter:

NEW!

President Donald J. Trump:

"Anybody that doesn’t think there wasn’t massive Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election is either very stupid, or very corrupt!" pic.twitter.com/QFjeJHt2SP

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) December 5, 2021

There are reasons why this is so:

"Can you say Squid Game in Korean? TV show fuels demand for east Asian language learning:

Japanese and Korean are in top five choices in UK this year at online platform Duolingo"

James Tapper, The Observor (12/24/21)

The surging growth of Japanese and Korean language learning is a veritable phenomenon:

Whether it’s down to Squid Game or kawaii culture, fascination with Korea and Japan is fuelling a boom in learning east Asian languages. Japanese is the fastest growing language to be learned in the UK this year on the online platform Duolingo, and Korean is the fourth fastest.