![\"\"](\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/~bgzimmer\/intrafamilial.jpg\" "\\"Click")
<\/a><\/p>\nDavid Feng, who posted this photograph on Flickr<\/a>, captioned it thus: \"This Chinglish is so scary….\"<\/p>\n Yes, the Chinglish is scary, but the Chinese is ostensibly fairly mundane:<\/p>\n cu\u014dz\u01ceo ji\u0101n \u6413\u6fa1\u95f4 (\"rubdown room\")<\/p>\n Sometimes cu\u014dz\u01ceo ji\u0101n \u6413\u6fa1\u95f4 is translated as \"bath room\", which is at best a loose rendering.<\/p>\n As to exactly what goes on in a cu\u014dz\u01ceo ji\u0101n \u6413\u6fa1\u95f4, in them clients may receive a rubdown with a damp towel, an energetic massage, or other services.<\/p>\n Now, to explain how the baffling Chinglish came about, let us begin with the last character, ji\u0101n \/ ji\u00e0n \u95f4. Pronounced in the 4th tone, it means \"space; separate; sow discord\". In the 1st tone, it means \"among; between; room\". So the problem with \"Between\" in the Chinglish is that the translator chose the wrong meaning for ji\u0101n \u95f4 (\"among; between; room\").<\/p>\n I have written about this error before in \"Water between<\/a>\"; cf. \"Opens the waterhouse; open water rooms<\/a>\". Here are some analogous terms:<\/p>\n x\u01d0sh\u01d2uji\u0101n \u6d17\u624b\u9593 (lit., \"wash hand room\" –> \"toilet; lavatory; restroom; water closet\")<\/p>\n x\u01d0z\u01ceoji\u0101n \u6d17\u6fa1\u9593 (lit., \"wash bath room\" –> \"bathroom\")<\/p>\n So much for ji\u0101n \/ ji\u00e0n \u95f4.<\/p>\n Moving on, how we get from cu\u014dz\u01ceo \u6413\u6fa1 (lit., \"rub bath\"; i.e., \"rubdown\") to \"intrafamilial transmission\" is even more mystifying than getting from ji\u0101n \/ ji\u00e0n \u95f4 to \"between\", which, as we have seen, is not really very difficult at all.<\/p>\n I began my investigation of this puzzler by doing a back translation from \"intrafamilial transmission\" to Chinese. I wanted to see what how to say \"intrafamilial transmission\" in Chinese. I was stunned and elated when I found that both Google Translate and Baidu Fanyi give none other than cu\u014dz\u01ceo \u6413\u6fa1 (\"rubdown\"). Paydirt!<\/p>\n Of course, that's not the end of the story, because we still have to figure out why they give such a seemingly weird translation of the English (\"intrafamilial transmission\") in Chinese (cu\u014dz\u01ceo \u6413\u6fa1 [\"rubdown\"]). At least we have determined that there is an unmistakable connection between the two, and that it is not entirely random.<\/p>\n Before proceeding, I should mention that, for \"intrafamilial transmission\", Bing Translator gives ji\u0101t\u00edng n\u00e8i chu\u00e1nsh\u016b \u5bb6\u5ead\u5185\u4f20\u8f93 , which is a more direct and transparent rendering of the English. So far as I can tell, however, ji\u0101t\u00edng n\u00e8i chu\u00e1nsh\u016b \u5bb6\u5ead\u5185\u4f20\u8f93 always refers to wireless setups within the home.<\/p>\n