Getting a fix of far-out slang

Chinglish story

This column focuses on Chinglish mistakes in our daily life. If you have any experiences to share, send them to Wang Yu at wangyu2008@ynet.com.

By Zhao Hongyi

My 18-year-old nephew is an energetic and boisterous guy. This month, he came to Beijing to prepare to attend the Beijing University of Technology in the fall.

My nephew is very good at his studies, especially English, as he knows quite a number of slang terms and idioms. He’s cultivated his language skills through a passion for music, especially hard rock.

He’s made full use of the last of his pre-collegian days: scouring TV channels for programs that feature his music of choice.

The other day, he got two tickets for a Sunday evening rock concert from his friends. He began preparing for the concert that very morning by stuffing his backpack with beer and snacks.

He was so excited and enjoyed the concert so much that he did not return home until midnight.

“How was the concert?” I asked.

“Far-out,” he replied.

I didn’t know what that meant.

“It means great,” he explained as if I were his student.

“Then how far out is it?”

“The four guys on stage sang for nearly four hours without a break,” he said. “It was the most exciting experience I’ve ever had.”

He mimed some of the actions of the singers. “We were so excited that we cried after their performance,” he said.

“How do you feel about following the performers alongside drunks and addicts?” I asked.
My nephew shrugged. “We in the audience cried from time to time to have another fix.”
I didn’t understand “have another fix.”

“Another dose of drugs!” he replied. “They get pretty crazy on stage.”

“Was it worth it to party all evening?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to hang out with your friends from Beijing in another setting?”

“They’re too flaky to do anything together,” he said.

Naturally, I didn’t understand the meaning of “flaky.”

“Unreliable!” he replied, then shooed me out the door, no doubt irritated by an uncle who couldn’t make heads or tails out of his slang. (Although, as you can see, I’m not completely oblivious to English idioms!)

Don’t walk into burning elevators

Chinglish on the way

This column aims to identify Chinglish in public areas. If you see any Chinglish signs, please send a picture of it to wangyu2008@ynet.com together with your name and address.

By Anthony Tao

Has anyone ever seen an elevator on fire? And the more important, even more rhetorical question: has anyone seen someone actually get on an elevator that’s on fire?

I think it’s safe to say that this sign is unnecessary. Of course no one would dare step into a three-square-meter box filling with flames.

The sign should probably say, “Do not use elevator in case of fire,” which means if there is a fire somewhere in the building, you should hurry to the nearest stairwell. This is, of course, to prevent you from being trapped inside an oven should the fire reach the elevator shaft – though you’d probably perish from smoke inhalation first.

Ah, but let’s not get morbid. And, really, let’s not nitpick too much here. The translation on the sign is actually decent, and this is a good example of an English phrase being perfectly understandable even if it’s not strictly “proper.”

Now the most relevant question of all: if you’re inside the elevator already and it catches fire, what do you do?

Don’t look at me for answers to that one.

Blacklist

This is a column of words or phrases commonly misused by Chinese speakers. If you’re planning to be an English teacher, reporter or employee of a multinational company, then watch out for this page each week.

1. In his memoir, Henry Paulson recalled telling the president that it was impossible to spot a coming financial blowup.

Professor Zhu Shida (ZS): This is a perfect sentence. I came across it in a commentary in the International Herald Tribune. What strikes me is its laconism. It tells so many things with such an economy of words – thanks to the usage of the pattern “verb + participle.” Normally people say: In his memoir, Henry Paulson recalled that he once told the president that it was impossible to spot a financial blowup coming. We have two subject clauses in succession here. It is not concise, so it is not good. I have another example of the pattern: I doubt anyone ever died regretting that he had failed to take a vacation. I think we have to be a careful reader and try all the time to find the good points in other people’s writings to improve our own.

Terry Boyd-Zhang (TBZ): I agree that one of the best ways to become a better writer is to read. However, reading only IELTS or TOEFL passages that may be on the exam isn’t enough. A person should be reading real English literature, and you can now find many excellent stories, even at a simplified level.

2. The two-year anniversary

ZS: This is a mistake people keep making all the time, though I have repeatedly cautioned them: Would you say you celebrate your 20-year birthday? Definitely not. You celebrate your 20th birthday (many happy returns on the day). This is the same with “anniversary.” Anniversary means the yearly return of a special date. For instance, the 25th wedding anniversary. Would you say 25-year wedding anniversary? Definitely not, either. So, before the word “anniversary,” you will have to use the ordinal number. Next time, please remember: They celebrated the second (not two-year) anniversary of the founding of the NGO by going to the streets to offer voluntary service.

TBZ: It seems to me that this is an incorrect saying made popular by TV advertising. I think that sometimes, in the desire to write a CATCHY and EXCITING and COOL advertisement, the language suffers. And advertising, in general, hurts my brain. If you pay attention, many TV commercials do not make sense at all. On the other hand, you should overlook the error and support your NGO of choice because they are doing good work and need your participation.

3. Boho yet elegant

ZS: This is one of the subspecies of expressions often seen in fashion magazines. Boho is a buzzword, short for “bohemian.” Of no high-brow English, it is the fashionista’s way of talking about styles that are hippie-influenced, often made of lightweight beaded or fringed fabrics. It is the kind of style accepted by the bohemians who live in Greenwich Village in New York. Though boho does not look like standard English, it is fairly recurrent in fashion magazines. For instance, “boho yet” may well be completed with: elegant, classy, uptown, sophisticated, “very ’80s,” glittery. And you may well encounter such English combinations of “complicated yet” with: trendy, funky, soft, whimsical, no-fuss, edgy, rebellious, etc. As a matter of fact, this kind of antithesis is intended by magazine editors to cover a clientele as broad as possible for the products they advertise.

TBZ: I used to have a friend who would talk in the lingo of whatever job she was currently at, leaving those of us, who did not speak in those acronyms, out of the conversation. If you regularly read fashion, you will already know the term “boho.” If I were doing your copy-editing, I might circle it in red and you might fire me for not being young and cool. Are such short forms a result of instant text messaging – we want it fast and we don’t want to spell it out completely? Or simply a space-(and therefore money-)saving technique? There are so many “specialized” words of this sort that it’s hard to keep up, unless it truly is your field of interest.

After Life (2009)

Movie of the week

After Life is a clever psychological thriller with a creepy and mysterious atmosphere. While its core concept is strong, it’s the execution that makes this movie shine.

The key question of After Life is whether lead actress Anna is alive or dead. The film bats back and forth delivering clues both subtle and blunt.

Even though the film tries to maintain some ambiguity, the ending is still quite obvious. But the adventure along the way will drive you crazy – in a good way.

The film poses some interesting questions regarding the nature of life, forcing the viewer to reflect on his own existence.

Synopsis

After a horrific car accident, Anna wakes up to find the local funeral director, Eliot Deacon, preparing her body to be laid out. Confused, terrified and feeling still very much alive, Anna doesn’t believe she’s dead, despite the funeral director’s reassurances that she is merely in transition to the afterlife. Eliot convinces her he has the ability to communicate with the dead and is the only one who can help her. Trapped inside the funeral home, with nobody to turn to except Eliot, Anna is forced to face her deepest fears and accept her own death.

Changing words in the changing world

Chinglish story

This column focuses on Chinglish mistakes in our daily life. If you have any experiences to share, send them to Wang Yu at wangyu2008@ynet.com.

By Zhang Dongya

Many words’ meanings mutate over time, and when an erstwhile innocuous definition turns prurient and risqué, user beware!

I have a recent anecdote to illustrate my point. An ex-colleague of mine named Eric, who now works for a daily newspaper, came calling last week asking to interview an English speaker who is proficient in Chinese. He was working on a story about Chinglish slogans – China may have more slogans than any other countries in the world, a stat only matched by the number of mistranslations of said slogans – and he knew that my company had several qualified individuals who could talk on the subject.

Since it was the busiest day of our workweek – “mad Wednesday” – I initially wanted to reject Eric’s request. But I saw him standing at the door of my office, begging, “I just need a few minutes,” so I grudgingly put him in touch with Derrick, an old China hand and the lead copyeditor at Beijing Today.

Derrick took a break from work to fulfill Eric’s request, causing colleagues to get anxious. The copy flow became delayed, and I felt very sorry about it.

Eric’s article came out the next day, along with a thank you from the writer. I passed those regards to Derrick in an email. Still feeling a bit guilty about taking up his time, I used an English idiom I thought might lighten the situation.

“Sorry to disturb you on hump day,” I wrote.

Soon I got this reply: “What is ‘hump day’?”

I remembered the phrase referred to Wednesday, the toughest workday of the week because it fell in the middle, as a “hump” that had to be climbed over.

To my surprise, Derrick told me he had never heard of the phrase, but that it sounded vaguely sexual given the meaning of “hump” as a verb.

Ugh. I’d not thought of this. And when I tried tracing the phrase’s origins and evolution, I hit a dead end.

Derrick told me that how people will understand “hump day” may have much to do with where they are from. While it may be common on the Internet, in southeast Michigan and other parts of the US it is virtually unheard of.

If the 2009 movie Humpday is any indicator, this phrase could be changing its meaning very soon.

It just goes to show that even if you master slang, how it is understood by native speakers may still very greatly.

Strictly Slapstick Chase

Chinglish on the way

This column aims to identify Chinglish in public areas. If you see any Chinglish signs, please send a picture of it to wangyu2008@ynet.com together with your name and address.

By Terry Boyd-Zhang

“Is this an advertisement for a comedian search?” I asked myself when I first saw this sign. “Slapstick” is a type of humor that uses violence and over-the-top illogical situations to win laughter. Slapstick can be seen in the acts of comedians such as Charlie Chaplin, Jim Carrey and Mike Meyers, and in cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes. The girl on the sign in the foreground is happy and pensive and the boy beside the small fence in the background, who has lost his pretty hat, is waiting eagerly for his pink balloon to come down so he can hit it again with his nose; they do not seem “slapstick” in the least. What is going on here? Yajin, the first two characters, mean “forbidden.” Zhui, the third character, is “chase” and danao, the last two, mean “to cause trouble.” So let’s plug the thing into nciku, an online Chinese-English dictionary: “strictly forbidden (to) chase or seek a violent, noisy row.” Google translate makes it “non-slapstick chase,” exactly the opposite of where we started. Huh? Over to the native speaker: “Chasing and beating each other is not allowed.” Nciku wins over Google on this one! So, if you are in the park and you feel like chasing and beating your children, but you see this sign, you will have to refrain. Although I believe that chasing your toddler to prevent him or her from playing in traffic would be a valid exception. Another exception might be if you were participating in some type of slapstick routine with your friends. ‘Course, you’d have to be strict about it.

Blacklist

This is a column of words or phrases commonly misused by Chinese speakers. If you’re planning to be an English teacher, reporter or employee of a multinational company, then watch out for this page each week.

1. Though they have very high IQs, they seem to be strangers to modest.

Professor Zhu Shida (ZS): We often say: He is a stranger to me. It means one does not know another person. Thus we have the phrase “stranger to,” followed by a pronoun or a noun.
 
When it means a person out of place or not at home in something, we express it this way: He is strange to the work but will soon learn. It means he is not accustomed to or is unfamiliar with the work. Based on this pattern, it evolves into “no stranger to.” He is no stranger to hard work. You see it is followed by a noun. It means that he is fairly accustomed to or fairly familiar with the work. Anyway, the sample sentence should read: Though they have very high IQs, they seem to be strangers to modesty. It means that they know nothing about how to be modest.

Terry Boyd-Zhang (TBZ): “He is a stranger to me” is also something you say about someone you have broken a relationship with. An arrogant person who brags about how vastly superior in intelligence he or she is to you, for example, may be one you would eventually discontinue any relationship with, treating them as if they were a stranger to you.

2. The renminbi will rub shoulder with the dollar and the euro one day.

ZS: It is fairly difficult for a beginner to make clear phrases involving “shoulder.” Sometimes it is in a singular form and at others it is plural. In this case, we have to say “rub shoulders with” which means: to mingle with, rub elbows with, be on par with or be equal to. I have an example from Vladimir Nabokov: Never have we rubbed shoulders with as many celebrities. So, here we have to say: The renminbi will rub shoulders with the dollar and the euro one day. However, when it comes to the phrase “give the cold shoulder to,” it is in the singular form. Don’t be confused. We usually say: She gives the cold shoulder to her suitor. You never say: She gives the cold shoulders to her suitor. We have another example from the International Herald Tribune: Teachers’ unions give the cold shoulder to the Obama administration.

TBZ: There are several expressions with “shoulder” or “shoulders” in English, as mentioned above. Some other expressions include: shoulder to shoulder (meaning “showing solidarity”), put one’s shoulder to the wheel (“to get to work – and hard!”) and stand head and shoulders above (“taller than everyone else” (literally) or “better than everyone else” (figuratively)). Be careful though – don’t overuse such expressions or your teacher might start to find you clichéd!

3. Slacks

ZS: We often read sports reports in Western newspapers about fans wearing slacks in the bleachers. The word reportedly is a corporate coinage. The Haggar clothing company asserts that in the 1940s, the Haggars, working with ad-man Morris Hite, deliberately coined the word “slacks,” so-called because they were to be worn during leisurely “slack time.” However, the Haggars could not get the patent for this term. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this word dates to 1824 when slacks started to be worn, meaning “loosely cut trousers for informal wear.” Now, in English dictionaries, we have an explanation of slacks as “trousers for casual wear.” Also, it still has something to do with its original meaning of “loose, careless, slow and sluggish.” “Slacks” is another example of linguistic evolution over time.

TBZ: Very interesting! We have slacks, trousers, pants, jeans, cords … then variations like harem pants, hammer pants, tunic pants, pajama pants, hot pants, flood pants … as you can see, I prefer the word “pants,” but “slacks” is fine, too. I think that “pants” is perhaps more general (something long you wear on the bottom) and I feel “slacks” are dressier, more like what you would wear to work (or to church), if you weren’t wearing a dress or a skirt.

Cemetery Junction (2010)

Movie of the week

Like many British movies, Cemetery Junction is simple, beautiful and leaves the audience wanting to watch it again. Free of Hollywood’s fancy visual effects, this movie wins on its story.

It somehow manages to portray the muted misery of life in the UK, and the unfocused, desperate yearning to escape that comes with it, without giving the viewer an overdose of angst or hope. The deeper message is one both profound and bittersweet that celebrates the cathartic release that comes with acceptance.

It’s great to watch on your own when life has got you down.

Synopsis

In 1970s England, three blue-collar friends spend their days joking, drinking, fighting and chasing girls. Freddie wants to leave their working-class world but the cool, charismatic Bruce and lovable loser Snork are happy with life as it is.

When Freddie gets a new job as a door-to-door salesman and bumps into his old school sweetheart Julie, the gang is forced to make choices that will change their lives forever.

English lessons abroad

Chinglish story

This column focuses on Chinglish mistakes in our daily life. If you have any experiences to share, send them to Wang Yu at wangyu2008@ynet.com.

By Wang Yu

People think it’s faster learning a foreign language if you’re living in that country. But as far as I’m concerned, where you live doesn’t matter when you isolate yourself from a particular place’s culture.

My aunt lived in Los Angeles for more than 10 years but she still cannot speak English fluently. Two years ago, she sold her spa in the US and returned to China.

I was always curious how a woman who did not speak English could run a business for so many years. The answer is simple – she lived in a Chinese community. If she needed to deal with Americans, variations of basic sentences could be repeated.

This isn’t just happening within the middle-aged Chinese population. When I was on vacation in England, I saw some Chinese students who rarely got out of their comfort zones. Their English actually got worse – or at least improved at a slower rate than when they were in China.

One day we held a dinner party in the public kitchen of a dormitory. I lived with my friend Amy, who was studying there, and got to know many Chinese students in the school. After finishing dinner, we played mafia. A German student named Alex joined us. To make it easier for him, all of the Chinese students spoke English.

“Well, I think this lady-killer should be Chris. What he said in the last two rounds was quite contradictory,” Alex said.

He pointed at Chris Liu, who was sitting opposite to him. During the game, there is an anonymous “killer” who sits in the crowd that people have to ferret out. Every round the “judge” asks people to close their eyes and let the killer select someone to kill. The mission is to find the killer before everyone “dies.”

“You say it’s a lady killer, but I’m not a lady,” Liu said.

“Ah… by lady-killer, I mean someone who kills ladies. You see, only girls have been kicked out so far,” Alex explained.

“Basic knowledge, isn’t it?” Amy said to me quietly.

The language deficiencies of the Chinese students really became obvious. They had lived in England for two years, but their unwillingness to assimilate to local life really hurt them.

“Actually, the first few months are hard for everyone because you find that all you’ve learned at school is useless,” Amy said. “But I soon started to take it as a good opportunity – if you are in Britain, try to live a British lifestyle. Watch TV, go to the streets, find a part-time job – they all help to improve one’s English.”

“Yes, I agree. Is there anything you can tell me now?” I said.

“You’ve gone bonkers, mate!”

“What? Bankers?”

“No, bonkers. It’s English slang that means you’re crazy. I heard it first from a local boy when I was working in McDonald’s. Then I found on the Internet it first appeared in the early 20th century, meaning ‘light-headed, giddy’ or ‘slightly drunk,’ used by the British navy.”

I kept that in mind. It turns out that talking to locals really will teach you more than any book.

Get an Electric Shock Carefully

This column aims to identify Chinglish in public areas. If you see any Chinglish signs, please send a picture of it to wangyu2008@ynet.com together with your name and address.

By Terry-Boyd Zhang

When first learning Chinese, at least for me, there seemed to be many words that were repetitive or unnecessary. Knowing more now, I appreciate the clarity and consideration that these words bring to everyday life. Take this sign for example: Get an electric shock carefully. It is a kind and gentle person who posted this sign for your benefit. Getting an electric shock is not something to be taken lightly. My dad used to have a Taser-like object for getting livestock onto the truck and, boy, you didn’t want to be swinging that thing around carelessly! (Barbaric, you say? He had one; I don’t recall him ever using it on the animals.)

Also, wrapping your car around a hydro-pole in the middle of a downpour or bathing with your laptop are both bad ideas – not “careful” at all. It’s kind of like “Run slowly!” If you do want to electrocute yourself, you had best do it carefully. Better yet, you should be careful, that’s for sure, and know that the box or the building where this sign was spotted probably contains dangerous high-voltage electrical equipment that will burn you to a crisp if you insist on opening the box or playing in the building. Rather than frying yourself, leave any fixing of the wires to professional electricians. Smartest to stay away.