{"id":43854,"date":"2019-08-03T13:48:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-03T18:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=43854"},"modified":"2019-08-09T19:47:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-10T00:47:10","slug":"hkers-add-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=43854","title":{"rendered":"\"HKers add oil\""},"content":{"rendered":"

Photograph in the Wall Street Journal, \"Hong Kong Protesters Fill Streets in District With History of Violent Clashes<\/a>:\u00a0 Police are under pressure to contain weeks of tear-gas-soaked demonstrations against mainland China\u2019s growing influence\", by John Lyons and Joyu Wang (8\/3\/19):<\/p>\n

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

As we see, the WSJ caption reads: \"Please help yourself. HKers add oil\".<\/p>\n

Fair enough for the first line:<\/p>\n

fun1jing4\u00a0 zi6 ceoi2 \/ hu\u0101ny\u00edng z\u00ec q\u01d4
\n\u6b61\u8fce\u81ea\u53d6
\n(\"welcome [to] take for yourself\")<\/p>\n

For those who are unfamiliar with Canto-English, the second line of the translation in the caption may not be fully comprehensible, but I would argue that it makes perfect sense to an English speaking denizen of Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

\"HKer\", like any good Chinese noun, is devoid of number.\u00a0 It is neither singular nor plural.\u00a0 The caption renders it as plural, and that's the number it is expected to have according to English grammar.\u00a0 But the language of the sign overall is Cantonese, and the \"HKer\" part is a special type of local English that has been fused with the Cantonese.<\/p>\n

As for the \"add oil\" part, it is the literal translation of a Sinitic exhortation (gaa1 jau4*2 \/ ji\u0101y\u00f3u \u52a0\u6cb9) that essentially means \"Go!\", one that we have studied extensively on Language Log:<\/p>\n