Comments on: Beijing Today “Chinglish” Article Confounds

By: Chuck

Chuck — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:54:40 +0000

I don’t only read your blog to antagonize you. That is just the main reason I read it.

By: eric

eric — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:39:24 +0000

i was reading the link to beijing today.
the web addy bjtoday.ynet.com seemed like an appropriate poster boy for the unfortunate/funny chinglish phenomenon.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:44:48 +0000

@chuck, my college friend who only reads my blog to antagonize me:

I am aware that ‘today’ can mean ‘present day’ but daily outlets tend to use the word ‘day’ eg- NBC’s Today Show, Newday, etc, while weeklies tend to use the word ‘week’, eg- businesweek, newsweek, etc.

Things about the modern world tend to use the word…’modern’, eg- modern architecture.

It’s a crazy linguistic thing. Much more confusing than life sciences.

By: King of Men

King of Men — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:05:56 +0000

“Chicken” used to refer to underage prostitutes, but man alive, that article is a howler! “Chicken leg!” Oi vey.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:58:39 +0000

Here is the dictionary entry for “Today”
–noun
1. this present day: Today is beautiful.
2. this present time or age: the world of today.

In light of the second entry, I don’t know what about the name Beijing Today makes it seem like it has to be a daily.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:09:59 +0000

He probably went to a Chinese restaurant in the US and ordered in Putonghua.

By: Gartner

Gartner — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:39:50 +0000

He made it up – Chinese writers often do this sort of thing. There’s no penalty for it.

The part of the article that rings true is a Chinese person going to America, and only eating Chinese food while he’s there. THAT I believe.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:51:58 +0000

The only other explanation I could think of was that he asked for a “Chick’s leg”, which still would neither be particularly offensive or in any way refer to a prostitute.

(Cup of Cha Josh)

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:19:17 +0000

You mean there are hookers in the States?

(Admin comment: this is peer-see.com Josh, not Cup of Cha Josh)

By: chriswaugh_bj

chriswaugh_bj — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:09:29 +0000

I second Yang, the internal logic of the story makes far more sense in Chinese than English. Except, of course, that ordering jitui or any kind of ji dish in a restaurant in China will get you chicken, and not a prostitute. The logic works better, but the story still doesn’t make sense.