{"id":49272,"date":"2020-11-26T14:05:56","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T19:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=49272"},"modified":"2020-11-26T14:10:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T19:10:13","slug":"it-is-cool-to-f-the-empress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=49272","title":{"rendered":"It is cool to f*** the empress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Superb piece of Chinglish that popped up in Alex Baumans' Facebook feed:<\/p>\n

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

Often with Chinglish, we have only the fractured English without the Chinese source text.\u00a0 In such cases, one has to work extra hard to figure out how the translator arrived at the hilarious results with which we are presented.\u00a0 In other words, we have to reconstruct the original on the basis of the mistranslated English.\u00a0 In the present situation, it is much easier because we also have the original Chinese text.\u00a0 Still, though, it is not a pushover, because the Chinese itself has some peculiarities that make it refractory in places, even for native speakers of Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM), i.e., P\u01d4t\u014dnghu\u00e0 \u666e\u901a\u8bdd.\u00a0 I will explain some of these odd usages after giving the text as is, with the customary Language Log Romanized transcription in Hanyu Pinyin and English translation.<\/p>\n

X\u01d0d\u00ed
\nPi\u01ceox\u01d0: Y\u00f2ng l\u011bngshu\u01d0 ji\u0101 x\u01d0f\u01ces\u00f9 j\u00ecnp\u00e0o sh\u00f9 f\u0113nzh\u014dng
\nW\u00f9 ni\u01d4zh\u00e0.
\nLi\u00e1ng g\u0101n: Q\u012bng p\u0101i di\u00e0o shu\u01d0zh\u016b, z\u00ecr\u00e1n li\u00e1ng g\u0101n,
\nW\u00f9 y\u00f2ng f\u0113ngt\u01d2ng chu\u012b.
\nD\u00ecngx\u00edng: Li\u00e1ng g\u0101n h\u00f2u, y\u00f2ng g\u0101ngzh\u0113n sh\u016bzi sh\u016b d\u00e0o yu\u00e1nl\u00e1i de f\u01cex\u00edng.
\nZh\u0113nq\u00edng f\u0101sh\u00ec r\u00f3ngy\u00f9 ch\u016bp\u01d0n<\/p>\n

\u6d17\u6ecc
\n\u6f02\u6d17\uff1a\u7528\u51b7\u6c34\u52a0\u6d17\u53d1\u7d20\u6d78\u6ce1\u6570\u5206\u949f
\n\u52ff\u626d\u643e
\n\u51c9\u5e72\uff1a\u8f7b\u62cd\u6389\u6c34\u73e0\uff0c\u81ea\u7136\u51c9\u5e72\uff0c\u52ff\u7528\u98ce\u7b52\u5439\u3002
\n\u5b9a\u578b: \u51c9\u5e72\u540e\uff0c\u7528\u94a2\u9488\u68b3\u5b50\u68b3\u5230\u539f\u6765\u7684\u53d1\u578b\u3002
\n\u771f\u60c5\u53d1\u9970\u8363\u8a89\u51fa\u54c1<\/p>\n

Washing \/ Cleaning
\nRinsing:\u00a0 Soak in cold water with shampoo for a few minutes
\nDon't wring.
\nAir-drying:\u00a0 Pat off the drops of water, let it dry naturally, do not use a blower.
\nStyling:\u00a0 After drying, use a comb with metal teeth to comb back to the original hairstyle.
\nGenuine Hair Accessories Glorious Product<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/p>\n

x\u01d0d\u00ed \u6d17\u6ecc is the traditional form of simplified \u6d17\u6da4 (\"washing; cleaning\")<\/p>\n

zh\u00e0 \u643e is a variant form of \u69a8 (\"squeeze \/ press [to express liquid \/ juices])\"<\/p>\n

x\u01d0f\u01ces\u00f9 \u6d17\u53d1\u7d20 (\"shampoo\") — nowadays on the mainland this is usually referred to as x\u01d0f\u01ceshu\u01d0 \u6d17\u53d1\u6c34 or x\u01d0f\u01cel\u00f9 \u6d17\u53d1\u9732<\/p>\n

ni\u01d4zh\u00e0 \u626d\u643e (\"wring\") — usually referred to as n\u00edngji\u01ceo \u62e7\u7ede or r\u00f3ucu\u014d \u63c9\u6413<\/p>\n

f\u0113ngt\u01d2ng \u98ce\u7b52 (\"hair dryer\", lit., \"wind tube\") — chu\u012bf\u0113ngj\u012b \u5439\u98ce\u673a (lit., \"blow wind machine\")<\/p>\n

li\u00e1ng g\u0101n \u51c9\u5e72 (\"cool dry\") should be the near homophone li\u00e0ng g\u0101n \u667e\u5e72 (\"air dry\")<\/p>\n

The flagrant mistranslations \"cool fuck\" and \"cool to fuck the empress\" are the result of the notorious simplifications of \u5e72 and \u540e to stand for more than one completely different and unrelated characters, an unfortunate phenomenon that we have addressed numerous times on Language Log (see under \"Selected readings\"), from the first of which I quote:<\/p>\n

The problem arises from the fact that, in the simplified character system, three characters from the traditional set are collapsed into one, namely, \u5e72. This one little character of three strokes, which originally was pronounced g\u0101n, had the following meanings: \"to oppose, offend against; a shield; the bank of a river; a stem (including a cyclical \/ calendrical symbol); attend to, concern; involve; consequences, results; seek; arrange\". With simplification, it took on most, but not all, of the meanings and pronunciations of the following two characters as well:<\/p>\n

g\u0101n \u4e7e (\"dry, dried; clean, exhausted; to possess the name without the true relationship; to hold a position in name only\")<\/p>\n

qi\u00e1n \u4e7e \u2014 the same character as the preceding one, but with a different pronunciation (\"heaven; male, father; sovereign; first of the eight trigrams in the Yi jing \/ I ching [Book of Changes]\") \u2014 this pronunciation and set of meanings was not assigned to \u5e72 in the simplified system, but were retained by the original character in its traditional form, which for these specific meanings was taken over as is into the simplified system<\/p>\n

g\u00e0n \u5e79 (\"the trunk of a tree or the body; business, to attend to business; manage; skillful, capable; do; fuck\")<\/p>\n

[Update:\u00a0 According to\u00a0Wiktionary<\/a>, after simplification \u5e72 now stands for at least five completely different etymologically derived morphosyllables \/ characters.]<\/p>\n

After simplification, h\u00f2u \u540e, which originally meant \"empress\", has been borrowed to stand for h\u00f2u\u00a0\u5f8c<\/span>\u00a0(\"after; rear; later; behind, back\"), without losing the meaning \"empress\"<\/p>\n

The perils of translating into English without really knowing English.<\/p>\n

Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\n