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Random new word of the day


roddy

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Better late than never, I'm sure that wasn't the last time you had something that was difficult to eat! I've been saying nanchi for years as well, but fortunately I now have a coworker who's not shy about correcting my Chinese. Or my English.

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I've just come across [POP=tōng fēng bào xìn]通风报信/通風報信[/POP] which means to "tip off" or "divulge secrets". Examples are:

一、雇人散发刻章办证小广告,为防老窝儿被端,还给散发小广告的人员配备手机以便通风报信。

二、我国工业发展面临的新矛盾通风报信:……。

三、被告人林某,因向黑社会团伙成员通风报信,……依法判处有期徒刑5年。

Coincidentally, I've just heard this expression used in this evening's edition of the history programme 《这里是北京》on 北京电视台—1. To be a true Beijinger, the phrase has to undergo [POP=érhuà: retroflection; the addition of the "er (儿)" sound to the end of certain syllables which typifies dialects spoken in Beijing and other parts of Northern China]儿化[/POP]: [POP=tōng fēng bào xìnr]通风报信/通風報信[/POP]!

This is going to be one of those expressions I now hear all the time!

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蛙人 wa1ren2 diver, especially in the navy. Taiwan calls its 蛙人 'frogmen'. The other day the first two women became 蛙人 in the ROC navy, which raised the question what to call them. Female frogmen? Frogwomen?

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That would be nice :-)

In Chinese they were just called 女蛙人, which works because 人 doesn't specify the sex. The problem was more what to call them in English. One English-language paper said frogwomen, one said female frogmen. I said female divers, but that wasn't picked up.

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蛙人 wa1ren2 diver, especially in the navy. Taiwan calls its 蛙人 'frogmen'. The other day the first two women became 蛙人 in the ROC navy, which raised the question what to call them. Female frogmen? Frogwomen?

Lu,

I didn't previously reply to the best English translation: I feel "frogwoman" is perhaps better but really shouldn't we say "frogperson" rather than "frogman" where the sex hasn't been specified? "Frogperson" sounds awkward but for some reason "frogwoman" less so.

女蛙人 does work as this use of 女 follows common Chinese usage. It is interesting, however, that you say 人 doesn't specify the sex. You are right that 人 doesn't inherently specify the sex of the person but in many cases it is common practice to use 女 as an adjectival prefix (e.g. 女老板, 出租车女司机 or 女局长) or as an adjectival suffix (think of news reports when there are changes in government/Party posts where 女 appears in brackets after the names of female post-holders). Such uses tend to be where a certain function has conventionally been carried out by a man. It is difficult to accept that in the majority of cases 人 or any other noun indicate a certain person in a certain function does not indicate sex. Often when not specificied, the sex is understood to be male (hence the need for 蛙人). Of course, there are also examples where 男 functions in the same way (e.g. 男护士 or 幼儿园男教师) but I would argue such examples are far less than those involving 女.

We haven't solved this problem of finding nouns devoid of any bias in English either. We also say "male nurse" (i.e. the "norm" is that a nurse is female) and so on. We do have some ways round the problem and there is much discussion over (politically) correct usage. Some committees, for example, are headed by a "chair" and others by a "chairman", regardless of the sex of the incumbent. Other committees refer to the "chairwoman" where the holder of the post is female.

In the word 蛙人 we fortunately circumscribe this problem of bias but I think that if we were forced to choose a personal pronoun, most of us would choose "he"/"他" suggesting that 人 is not always neutral.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I usually translate 在野黨 as 'opposition party'.

教安 jiao4an1 polite phrase to end a letter (or email) to a teacher, literally means something like 'teach in peace'.

From my colleagues discussing conventions for Chinese letters. 祝好 is ok for letters to friends, and if it has to be more polite but you don't want to be too specific, you end with '[name] 敬上'.

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ok, I have accumulated some really random ones:

襟兄 jin1xiong1, brothers-in-law, whose wives are sisters

烙印lao4yin4 to brand (as in to brand cattle), a brand,but can also be used figuratively,

"北京奥运之后,除了金牌和场馆之外,中国的文明烙印中能留下什么?”

碾: nian3:roller and millstone, but looks like it can be used to say roll over st., like

"南坝路司机听见“快倒车”才知碾着一个人"

掐算:qia1suan4: to reckon, or count s.t. on one's fingers, to figure s.t.

"马思聪身体一向很健康,他给自己掐算过能活到98岁"

捣:dao3: to pound with a pestle, ie 捣碎(sui4)

"先将榛子仁捣碎,然后与枸杞子一同加水煎汁,去渣后与粳米一同用文火熬成粥即成"

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Culled from this mornings 德国之声, I have for you . . .

辞呈 cíchéng, written resignation, from a bit about Italy's recent 信任表决 - xìnrènbiǎojué or vote of (no confidence) in . . . whoever it was. I had to a double-listen on this one as they said something like 因未通过信任表决提出辞职, but I heard it as 因为, which didn't make sense, even in Italian politics.

Also 关门大吉 guānméndàjí, which the ABC just has as 'to close down for good', but the Guifan specifies it is a 戏称, which makes more sense.

Oh, and one I just remembered - 交易员, jiāoyìyuán, trader. Nice and simple, but I hadn't seen it before.

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In mid August 2007, the PRC Ministry of Education published a survey of the state of Chinese language(s) in 2006. The survey includes examples of new words which may be of interes (see the attached pdf).

I don't know which is my favourite, maybe 洋漂族(即到中国来体验生活的外国人,他们的工作、生活大多不固定,经常变换,到处漂流)!

The whole survey can be read on the Ministry of Education's website.

2006年汉语新词语选目.pdf

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