{"id":49789,"date":"2020-12-29T15:47:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T20:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=49789"},"modified":"2021-01-06T19:47:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T00:47:30","slug":"lucky-eating-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=49789","title":{"rendered":"Lucky eating you"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign at a shop in Changzhou, Jiangsu, specifically at the Computer City mall:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

H\u011bn x\u00ecngy\u00f9n ch\u012b d\u00e0o n\u01d0<\/p>\n

\u5f88\u5e78\u8fd0\u5403\u5230\u4f60<\/p>\n

Google Translate: \"Lucky to eat you.\"\u00a0 [VHM:\u00a0 not bad!]<\/p>\n

The English on the sign is actually a fair representation of what the Chinese says.\u00a0 Perhaps \"Nice to eat you\" or \"Nice eating you\" would work too.<\/p>\n

While I think almost everyone who reads only the English would find it hard to grasp, all Chinese to whom I showed this sign had no difficulty understanding what it meant.\u00a0 They agreed that both the Chinese and the English are weird, but they immediately comprehended that \"n\u01d0 \u4f60\" (\"you\") refers to the food served in this restaurant.\u00a0 In other words, after wandering around this mall looking for a place to eat some interesting, good food, I'm fortunate to have ended up here to eat the food at this restaurant.<\/p>\n

The verb ch\u012b \u5403 (\"eat\") has some special nuances in current Mandarin that may also be operative in this shop name.\u00a0 In daily conversation, \"ch\u012b zh\u01d4n n\u01d0 \u5403\u51c6\u4f60\" and \"ch\u012b d\u00ecng n\u01d0 \u5403\u5b9a\u4f60\u201c both mean \"I got you [for sure] \/ I'll definitely win you over \/ I won't let you go\".<\/p>\n

A boyfriend can tell his girlfriend, \"W\u01d2 ch\u012b d\u00ecng n\u01d0 le \u6211\u5403\u5b9a\u4f60\u4e86 \/ W\u01d2 ch\u012b zh\u01d4n n\u01d0 le \u6211\u5403\u51c6\u4f60\u4e86\u201d meaning \"[I have you in my sights and] you are mine [now]\".\u00a0 In a chess game, a man can say to his opponent, \u201cN\u01d0 b\u00e8i w\u01d2 ch\u012b d\u00ecng le \u4f60\u88ab\u6211\u5403\u5b9a\u4e86\u201d (\"I've got the situation totally under control \/ I will definitely win over you.\"\u00a0 So I guess under these circumstances, it might also be thought of as a kind of teasing.<\/p>\n

My Chinese respondents agree that, though comprehensible, both the Chinese and the English are bizarre, probably intentionally so to attract the attention of potential customers<\/p>\n

The above photograph is the last of eleven included in this article:<\/p>\n

\"No Logic at Computer City<\/a>\", by richristow, on his blog Real Changzhou (12\/27\/20)<\/p>\n

A number of the other photographs feature strange aspects of this cockamamie mall, such as elevators that go nowhere and incomprehensible Chinglish (e.g., \"No professional doors\").<\/p>\n

Incidentally, it would appear that \"Lucky eating you\" is permanently closed, as can be seen from\u00a0this Yelp-like listing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Thanks to Vito Acosta, Diana Shuheng Zhang, Chenfeng Wang, Yilise Lin, Yijie Zhang, Jinyi Cai, Qi Ruan, and Shuqi Huang]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sign at a shop in Changzhou, Jiangsu, specifically at the Computer City mall:<\/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":[180,34,222,6,259],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-found-in-translation","category-language-and-advertising","category-language-and-food","category-lost-in-translation","category-signs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49789","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=49789"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49914,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49789\/revisions\/49914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}