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.