We need a new word in English:\u00a0 \"roboton\"<\/p>\r\n
The reason I thought of this is because it reflects my reaction to the constant, mindless, monotonous repetition of Chinese government spokespersons with ready-made responses to any should-be difficult questions that may be put to them.\u00a0 For example, \"China maintains a position of strict neutrality in the Ukraine crisis and never does anything contrary to international law\" (or words to that effect), as Mme. Mao Ning (Director of the Foreign Ministry Information Department of China) has said so many times.<\/p>\r\n
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When the word \"roboton\" popped into my mind to characterize Mme. Mao Ning's mode de parler, I just assumed that it already was an English word.\u00a0 But when the grammar \/ spell checker on my computer told me something was wrong, I looked up \"roboton\" and found that indeed it didn't exist in English.\u00a0 So I searched around and found that, as we all know, \"robot\" originates from the Czech word robota<\/em> (forced labor, drudgery), introduced in Karel \u010capek\u2019s 1920 play R.U.R. (\"Rossum's Universal Robots\")\u00a0to describe artificial, human-like machines. It refers to automatic, programmable machines performing tasks or, metaphorically, a person acting mechanically, a\u00a0robotnik<\/em> (forced worker).<\/span><\/p>\r\n So the \"robot\" part of my \"roboton\" was all right for what I wanted to say, but by \"ton\", in my mind I was thinking of something like an automaton, a zombie-like person who just says whatever he \/ she is programmed to speak when a certain button is pushed.\u00a0 We know full well that China has been measurably assisting Russia in its attack on Ukraine — there is hard, documented evidence of that.\u00a0 For Madame Mao to say otherwise is a blatant lie, but she had to say it because that is what she was programmed to say.<\/p>\r\n I was thinking of her speech as a \"roboton litany\".<\/p>\r\n Also, very much in my mind when I was inventing \"roboton\" was this song by Styx (1983):<\/p>\r\n