{"id":18681,"date":"2015-04-19T22:59:23","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T03:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=18681"},"modified":"2015-04-19T23:01:05","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T04:01:05","slug":"please-micturate-in-the-urinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=18681","title":{"rendered":"Please micturate in the urinal"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have just emerged from a discussion of how to refer to dog excrement on public notices:\u00a0\"Scoop the poop<\/a>\" (4\/15\/15).\u00a0The same sort of uncertainty surrounds notices concerning public urination by humans.\u00a0 From a men's room in the West Beijing Railway Station:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dean Barrett, who sent in the photo, apologizes for the fuzziness:<\/p>\n

I blew it because I had the flash on and since there were other guys taking a whiz in the trough I didn't dare take another shot as I was already being observed….<\/p>\n

No matter, the sign is worth examining despite the blurriness, and it's easy enough for me to reconstruct all of the Chinese and the English (see below).<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this notice is that the prefatory part in large, white characters on a striking red background at the top overwhelms the real notice in much smaller, black characters nearly lost on a yellow background at the bottom right.\u00a0 By the time they read the top part and follow the arrow, the men standing in front of the trough have probably already splashed their shoes and the floor.<\/p>\n

zh\u00e8 sh\u00ec w\u01d2 y\u012bzh\u00ed xi\u01ceng du\u00ec n\u01d0 shu\u014d de hu\u00e0 \u8fd9\u662f\u6211\u4e00\u76f4\u60f3\u5bf9\u4f60\u8bf4\u7684\u8bdd
\n(\"this is what I've always wanted to tell you\")<\/p>\n

The injunction to urinate into the pool is common throughout China and is one in a group of four slogans exhorting people to be more civilized:<\/p>\n

ji\u00e9yu\u0113 y\u00f2ngshu\u01d0\u00a0 w\u00e9nm\u00edng n\u01d0 zu\u00ecm\u011bi \u8282\u7ea6\u7528\u6c34\u00a0 \u6587\u660e\u4f60\u6700\u7f8e
\nSaving water\u00a0 you are the best<\/p>\n

xi\u01ceobi\u00e0n r\u00f9 ch\u00ed\u00a0 w\u00e9nm\u00edng n\u01d0 zu\u00ecm\u011bi \u5c0f\u4fbf\u5165\u6c60\u00a0 \u6587\u660e\u4f60\u6700\u7f8e
\nUrinating into the pool\u00a0\u00a0 you are the best<\/p>\n

j\u00edsh\u00ed ch\u014dngshu\u01d0\u00a0 w\u00e9nm\u00edng n\u01d0 zu\u00ecm\u011bi \u53ca\u65f6\u51b2\u6c34\u00a0 \u6587\u660e\u4f60\u6700\u7f8e
\nFlushing timely\u00a0 you are the best<\/p>\n

aih\u00f9 g\u014dngw\u00f9\u00a0 w\u00e9nm\u00edng n\u01d0 zu\u00ecm\u011bi \u7231\u62a4\u516c\u7269\u00a0 \u6587\u660e\u4f60\u6700\u7f8e
\nProtecting public property\u00a0 you are the best<\/p>\n

You can see the whole series here on the Englishtown site<\/a>.\u00a0Except for the second slogan, the English translations are more or less serviceable.<\/p>\n

We've struggled with the second slogan before, as here:\u00a0\"Please pee in the pool<\/a>\" (8\/4\/14), with links to earlier posts on public urination.<\/p>\n

It might better be rendered as \"Relieving yourself into the urinal\", or some such.<\/p>\n

This placard from Hooters in Beijing explains the need for such signs:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, the last clause of each of the four slogans may be more accurately and fully rendered as:<\/p>\n

w\u00e9nm\u00edng n\u01d0 zu\u00ecm\u011bi\u00a0 \u6587\u660e\u4f60\u6700\u7f8e (\"[when it comes to being] civilized, you're the best\")<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have just emerged from a discussion of how to refer to dog excrement on public notices:\u00a0\"Scoop the poop\" (4\/15\/15).\u00a0The same sort of uncertainty surrounds notices concerning public urination by humans.\u00a0 From a men's room in the West Beijing Railway Station:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lost-in-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18681"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18718,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18681\/revisions\/18718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}