Things I learned today

[roddy]

Here's todays harvest of knowledge:

Formal letter writing:

事由 - shiyou - Re:

致有关人士 - zhi youguan renshi - To whom it may concern

Oil Products:

汽油 - qiyou - petrol / gasoline

航天煤油 - hangtian meiyou - aviation fuel

and if anyone can come up with a decent translation for 蜡油 I'd like to know it. The dictionary said 'wax oil' but I'm damned if I know what wax oil is. I forget what diesel was, but something tells me I won't miss it . . .

Demographics

海归派 - haiguipai - literally sea return group / clique - those who've studied abroad and now returned. Gui is a formal word for 'return' I believe, while pai is sometimes found in politics - 左派, 右派.

北飘族 - bei piao zu - north floating people - I'd read this a long time ago, but heard it in conversation today. It refers to the people who leave their hometowns to look for work in Beijing, but seems to be more those who've graduated / can find decent jobs rather than those working on building sites and in kitchens. I really like this one. I've also seen it used in 北飘生活.

Medical:

Now here's an example of how great Chinese vocabulary can be.

胆管炎 - danguanyan - liver pipes inflammation. Now if you know those three characters (the first one you'll see on menus, the second I guess isn't that common with this meaning and the third you should know from reading the newspaper around the time of SARS or buying antibiotics - 消炎药) you can pretty easily figure out that there's a problem around the liver area. And the English version - cholingitis. I mean, why? Why can't we just say 'inflamed liver pipes'?

Roddy

[Quest]

Too many syllables in English? (is cholingitis a pseudo-Latin word? English does things like that but with Latin vocab.)

I also like that aspect of Chinese. It makes it a lot easier to learn new vocabulary. That's why vocabulary isn't a major exam topic in Chinese schools.

[芳芳]

Yeah, when I passed my cursor on the 胆管炎 characteres, my translating sofware said: cholangitis...

If someone wo haven't studied medicine fgor ten years has ever seen that word!

[zh-laoshi]

And the English version - cholingitis. I mean, why? Why can't we just say 'inflamed liver pipes'?

Because that would make things too easy. English has to keep the reputation of being the most difficult language in the world, and to do so, it has to chop, slice and dice any word to make it sound like something important.

[nnt]

cholingitis. I mean, why? Why can't we just say 'inflamed liver pipes'?

In fact it's cholangitis.

itis = inflammation (you should know your sino-latin roots !)

Chol... cholera, choleric... same root (something to do with biliary stuffs )

Ing? don't know. At least searching it in a dictionary (if Google not available) is instantaneous (even if mispelled)

English is much easier than Chinese, even a Devil's advocate would say it (in English)

[林彪]

Yeah, when I passed my cursor on the 胆管炎 characteres, my translating sofware said: cholangitis...

Wow, what kind of software is that?

[nnt]

Wow, what kind of software is that?

金山词霸 is one of them

Btw I didn't see FanFan has already noticed the right spelling for cholangitis as translation for the mentioned "characteres" ( very Franglais )

[shibo77]

When I read this post, I was reminded of the chemical elements.

Here are some examples:

Liquids at room temperature, therefore the water, liquid radical.

溴 chou Bromine water with 臭chou "smelly", because bromine is smelly!

汞 gong Mercury water with 工gong.

Solids at room temperature, therefore the gold, metallic radical.

锂 li Lithium gold with 里li, to show its pronounciation.

钨 wu Tungsten gold with 乌wu "dark", because tungsten is dark.

Gaseous at room temperature, therefore the gas, air radical.

氢 qing Hydrogen gas, pronounced the same as 轻qing "light(in weight, in load)", because hydrogen has its light quality.

氧 yang Oxygen gas with 羊yang, to show its pronounciation.

Exist as solid crystals, the rock radical.

碘 dian Iodine rock with 典dian, to show its pronounciation.

碳 tan Carbon rock with 炭tan "charcoal".

It would be easy to distinguish new elements.

铹 lao Lawrencium 劳lao borrowed initial pronounciation, in the solid form.

While unless I have looked up a Greek dictionary or learnt Classical Greek, I would not know hudōr/hudrōs as water, and the suffix -gen as "the producer of...".

Cholangitis, I didn't find it in my Latin dictionary, I think it is from Greek, because Latin didn't have "ch" words, they used it to transcribe Greek loans with the lettre "X χ chi". The suffix "-itis" was/is used in Greek for feminine adjectives. Most biological terms loaned are from Greek. For example, fungus.

English is much easier than Chinese.

- Shibo

[nnt]

"While unless I have looked up a Greek dictionary or learnt Classical Greek, I would not know hudōr/hudrōs as water, and the suffix -gen as "the producer of...". "

You don't have to look up in a Greek dictionary: an English dictionary would give you the meaning of prefix "hydro" in hydro-something as related to water, and of suffix "gene" in something-gene as "producer of..." Or an English grammar book (semantics section) would explain the origin of English words in English...

[Alleluia]

My big and beautiful Oxford English Dictionary told me that cholangitis -> origin from Greek khole 'gall, bile + angeion 'vessel'. And the -itis suffix also comes from Greek and is used to form names of inflammatory diseases.

Oh I just love dictionaries!