Comments on: searching-thought-earth-skin-virtue.

By: Ray Girvan

Ray Girvan — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:50:37 +0000

Re the “Love. Duty. Humanity. Virtue” = “I surrender” – this comes from Paul MA Linebarger (aka Cordwainer Smith – see http://apothdrawer.blogspot.com/2004/05/psyop-and-cordwainer-smith.html).
Interesting to see it confirmed; I’ve only previously seen it in an anthology preface without the transliteration explained. It seemed to work in Mandarin, but not knowing the language, I didn’t fully trust my attempt at dictionary translation.

By: chubb

chubb — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:56:24 +0000

Though it’s a bit late for joining the conversation, here and elsewhere you seem to downplay the meanings inherent in characters – though i read it a while ago, the one that springs to mind is Nokia in that 渣打银行 post.

Now i realise there exist such things as 单纯字 and 合成字 (right? i’m not a linguist) so some characters can’t stand alone and retain meaning. But Chinese personal names indicate that meanings – and at the very least, senses of meaning – are present regardless of how meaningful it would be if treated as a sentence.

Of course few people will read “Promise-base-Asia” as a statement, “we promise to base in Asia”, but the meanings of the characters are without doubt present. But Chinese people clearly pay great attention to the characters that make up names. Would people named 陈基诺 be considered to have a meaningless name?

By: Paul King

Paul King — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 01:09:57 +0000

Well, Hong Kong transliterations often differ from mainland ones because of the vast difference in pronunciation between Cantonese and mandarin (of course there mayalso be cultural factors). E.g. Hollywood is 好莱坞 on the mainland but 荷里活 in HK. Sometimes it’s very funny to read a HK transliteration in mandarin, for instance, 阿诺舒华辛力加. Guess who that is? Arnold Schwarzenegger!

By: Baimor

Baimor — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:48:35 +0000

Hi Brendan,
this blog entry reminds of different translations between mainland and HK.
Eg, PricewaterhouseCoopers is called in 普华永道 in mainland China while in HK it’s translated as 罗兵咸。
now you see how different it is.. Can’t savor the HK version translation really.

I find this case applies to all: if you’re not actually in the cultural/social/political/economic environment, you can find it hard to appreciate its unique design/rules,etc. So that’s why i don’t criticize things easily, being an outsider.

You should’ve been back from Macau. Good luck to you.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 23:28:51 +0000

First off, thanks for sharing! I couldnt believe the USA Today article. In my opinion they are taking shots at the Chinese culture, but you have a responsible description, that it is written “lazily.” Politicians in my town actually advertise themselves to the Chinese communities under their OWN made-up Chinese names.

By: Vladimir

Vladimir — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 05:47:42 +0000

Well, a citizenship test is far from being the only way to become a citizen — you can be born to American nationals abroad and emigrate to the U.S. at an adult age, you can marry a U.S. citizen, or you can even be bestowed with an honorary citizenship for exceptional achievements.

As far as the wisdom of letting people who cannot resolve Kèlíndùn into Clinton vote in an election: I remember one time I was listening to Chinese Radio New York, and there happened to be a program teaching listeners some basic politics-related English phrases. Two consecutive phrases were: “In America there are many political parties.” followed by: “The Republican party is a very old party.”

By: 长舟丫

长舟丫 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:03:27 +0000

Wow! You continue to rock, and I’m delighted to hear about the literary/translation blog. Bookmarked!

By: Lu

Lu — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:01:16 +0000

Incidentally, I just realised that 湯姆孫 would be the best transl(iter)ation of Thompson: it’s close enough in sound, and meaning ‘Tom’s grandson’ it’s only one generation off in meaning.

By: Brendan O'Kane

Brendan O'Kane — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 05:35:46 +0000

No deal, Lu — that punctuation mark saves the day, keeping ‘弗烈德’ from ‘湯普森,’ and me from having to follow through on eating the Cihai. Good try, though!

By: Lu

Lu — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:09:10 +0000

“My offer stands: justify “Sticky Rice” or “Upset Stomach” and I will tear the pages of the 辞海 out, soak them in chili oil and vinegar, and choke down lexicology stew with a piquant garnish of shame.”
Did you leave out ‘Virtue Soup’ on purpose? Because I just realised I can justify that one.

Transliterations are from the Liberty Times, because that was the first source that I thought of. I.e., these are actually used transliterations for Fred and Thompson.

Fred: 弗烈德
Thompson: 湯普森, 湯姆遜
Fred Thompson: 弗烈[[德湯]]普森
There’s your virtue soup. Let us know how the Cihai tastes!