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Puns Forbidden in China

Started by QueenThera, December 20, 2014, 08:33:35 PM

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Prelate Diogenes Shandor

Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on December 23, 2014, 02:44:28 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 23, 2014, 02:30:10 AM
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 22, 2014, 10:09:49 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 22, 2014, 09:22:47 PM
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 22, 2014, 08:12:49 PM
I was struck by this line:

QuoteThe official line is that the new rules—which ban the use of wordplay in the press, broadcasts, and advertisements—are intended to uphold the sanctity of the Chinese language

Because even if we believe that that really is the reasoning behind it, that's still a pretty bad motivation given that China probably has the most backward-ass language of any noteworthy world power.

It does, does it? By what standard?

They don't even have an alphabet!

It wouldn't have to be the latin alphabet; it could just as easily be cyrillic, or greek, or kana or a totally new system, but not having an alphabet at all is backward and makes the language needlessly obtuse.

YOUR IDEAS ARE BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD.

By this guy's logic, the very roots of history, written in the various Mesopotamian languages and Egyptian, are inherently backward. Because of how they wrote. You know, not because of all of the other fucked up shit like legal maiming or slavery.

It's a rich tapestry of backwardness.
Praise NHGH! For the tribulation of all sentient beings.


a plague on both your houses -Mercutio


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTGgpWmdZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWd7nPjJH8


It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster -Nietzsche


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q


You are a fluke of the universe, and whether you can hear it of not the universe is laughing behind your back -Deteriorata


Don't use the email address in my profile, I lost the password years ago

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 23, 2014, 05:27:21 AM
Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on December 23, 2014, 02:44:28 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 23, 2014, 02:30:10 AM
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 22, 2014, 10:09:49 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 22, 2014, 09:22:47 PM
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 22, 2014, 08:12:49 PM
I was struck by this line:

QuoteThe official line is that the new rules—which ban the use of wordplay in the press, broadcasts, and advertisements—are intended to uphold the sanctity of the Chinese language

Because even if we believe that that really is the reasoning behind it, that's still a pretty bad motivation given that China probably has the most backward-ass language of any noteworthy world power.

It does, does it? By what standard?

They don't even have an alphabet!

It wouldn't have to be the latin alphabet; it could just as easily be cyrillic, or greek, or kana or a totally new system, but not having an alphabet at all is backward and makes the language needlessly obtuse.

YOUR IDEAS ARE BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD.

By this guy's logic, the very roots of history, written in the various Mesopotamian languages and Egyptian, are inherently backward. Because of how they wrote. You know, not because of all of the other fucked up shit like legal maiming or slavery.

It's a rich tapestry of backwardness.

Keep diggin'.
Molon Lube

Cain

Chinese is backwards...because it is more complex.  OK.  Kinda like how Skyrim is backwards, because it uses a more complex engine than Pong.  Makes sense.

It's also written backwards.  Making it doubly backwards.  Or is that forwards? 

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Cain on December 23, 2014, 01:29:05 PM
Chinese is backwards...because it is more complex.  OK.  Kinda like how Skyrim is backwards, because it uses a more complex engine than Pong.  Makes sense.

It's also written backwards.  Making it doubly backwards.  Or is that forwards?

I used to be an idiot, but I turned that around 360 degrees.
Molon Lube

Trivial

#34
Does Cantonese have tenses?  Had a friend from Hong Kong and with speaking English he seemed to get tenses usually, but I'd proof read his writing and it seemed to have no sense of "when".
Sexy Octopus of the Next Noosphere Horde

There are more nipples in the world than people.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 23, 2014, 05:27:21 AM
Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on December 23, 2014, 02:44:28 AM
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 23, 2014, 02:30:10 AM
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 22, 2014, 10:09:49 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 22, 2014, 09:22:47 PM
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 22, 2014, 08:12:49 PM
I was struck by this line:

QuoteThe official line is that the new rules—which ban the use of wordplay in the press, broadcasts, and advertisements—are intended to uphold the sanctity of the Chinese language

Because even if we believe that that really is the reasoning behind it, that's still a pretty bad motivation given that China probably has the most backward-ass language of any noteworthy world power.

It does, does it? By what standard?

They don't even have an alphabet!

It wouldn't have to be the latin alphabet; it could just as easily be cyrillic, or greek, or kana or a totally new system, but not having an alphabet at all is backward and makes the language needlessly obtuse.

YOUR IDEAS ARE BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD.

By this guy's logic, the very roots of history, written in the various Mesopotamian languages and Egyptian, are inherently backward. Because of how they wrote. You know, not because of all of the other fucked up shit like legal maiming or slavery.

It's a rich tapestry of backwardness.

Hey, you might get something valuable out of this thread: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=34548.0;topicseen
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Q. G. Pennyworth

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 23, 2014, 04:35:29 AM
Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on December 23, 2014, 02:54:43 AM
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul

QuoteUntil the early twentieth century, hangul was denigrated as vulgar by the literate elite who preferred the traditional hanja (Han script) writing system.[4] They gave it such names as:

Achimgeul (아침글 "writing you can learn within a morning").[5] Although somewhat pejorative, this was based on the reality, as expressed by Jeong Inji, that "a wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."[6] In the original hanzi, this is rendered as "故智者不終朝而會,愚者可浹旬而學。"[7]

Translation:
You're dumb and lazy if you need letters.

Considering that there are plenty of loud Americans who don't know how to properly implement a mere 26 symbols after at least a solid decade of training to express their thoughts in writing, there might be some sense in that sentiment. It ain't the writing system. It's the idiot whut weeldz it.

The problem isn't that it's 26 symbols. It's that it takes comprehending one of the world's most difficult, least consistent, most hybridized languages with among the least consistent rules, and that's what you're supposed to learn to read and write. That English, a total bullshit system that only has supremacy due to the combination of ships and guns alongside the lucky strike of not having a random epidemic just then.

The only system of symbols people have ever put together that are completely THE RIGHT THING are Arabic numerals, as is clearly evident by everyone who's ever come into contact with them switching over, because they make math work. Everything else is aesthetics.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on December 23, 2014, 05:50:41 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on December 23, 2014, 04:35:29 AM
Quote from: Nepos twiddletonis on December 23, 2014, 02:54:43 AM
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul

QuoteUntil the early twentieth century, hangul was denigrated as vulgar by the literate elite who preferred the traditional hanja (Han script) writing system.[4] They gave it such names as:

Achimgeul (아침글 "writing you can learn within a morning").[5] Although somewhat pejorative, this was based on the reality, as expressed by Jeong Inji, that "a wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."[6] In the original hanzi, this is rendered as "故智者不終朝而會,愚者可浹旬而學。"[7]

Translation:
You're dumb and lazy if you need letters.

Considering that there are plenty of loud Americans who don't know how to properly implement a mere 26 symbols after at least a solid decade of training to express their thoughts in writing, there might be some sense in that sentiment. It ain't the writing system. It's the idiot whut weeldz it.

The problem isn't that it's 26 symbols. It's that it takes comprehending one of the world's most difficult, least consistent, most hybridized languages with among the least consistent rules, and that's what you're supposed to learn to read and write. That English, a total bullshit system that only has supremacy due to the combination of ships and guns alongside the lucky strike of not having a random epidemic just then.

The only system of symbols people have ever put together that are completely THE RIGHT THING are Arabic numerals, as is clearly evident by everyone who's ever come into contact with them switching over, because they make math work. Everything else is aesthetics.

I've never thought about it before, but you're absolutely right, or at least, nobody's come up with anything better.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Cherokee has a syllabary, which has always made perfect sense to me because you can tell exactly how a word is pronounced by looking at it.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cain

Quote from: Trivial on December 23, 2014, 03:39:41 PM
Does Cantonese have tenses?  Had a friend from Hong Kong and with speaking English he seemed to get tenses ususlly, but I'd proof read his writing and it seemed to have no sense of "when".

It does...but it's complicated.  In normally spoken Cantonese, there are no tenses and people normally rely on some form of time indication in the sentence or preceding/following ones.  Rather like Indonesian. 

Prelate Diogenes Shandor

Praise NHGH! For the tribulation of all sentient beings.


a plague on both your houses -Mercutio


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTGgpWmdZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWd7nPjJH8


It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster -Nietzsche


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q


You are a fluke of the universe, and whether you can hear it of not the universe is laughing behind your back -Deteriorata


Don't use the email address in my profile, I lost the password years ago

Doktor Howl

Molon Lube

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on December 24, 2014, 12:24:33 AM
Quote from: Cain on December 23, 2014, 01:29:05 PM
Chinese is backwards...because it is not parsimonious

FTFY

Dig your heels in and screech, little monkey!  :lulz:

I think possibly the most amusing thing about this is that you have all these opinions, but you don't actually either speak nor write any of the 298 languages in use in China, and are basing your opinions on something you heard that your sister's professor once said.
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

And i would recommend that you look the definition of "parsimonious" up in a dictionary, because I don't think it has the connotation you're trying to go for.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

(You are, however, doing an excellent job of making yourself look kinda racist).
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."