Incorrect English in a petition to the White House

I just saw Invest and deport Jasmine Sun who was the main suspect of a famous Thallium poison murder case (victim:Zhu Lin) in China, a petition to the White House calling for investigation and deportation of a suspect in the Zhu Ling case. I'm pleased with this volunteer work that aims at bringing this 18-year-long horrendous criminal case to a satisfactory end. However, the author of this petition is seriously lacking in basic English language skills. Lousy errors occur from the title to almost the end: "Invest" for "Investigate", "Zhu Lin" for "Zhu Ling", ..., "petite" for "petition". I'm deeply disappointed with this apparently Miami-based Chinese gentleman that has a warm heart yet inadequate training in English. Let's see if the White House will respond to a petition full of grammatical as well as factual (Zhu Lin for Zhu Ling) errors, if the signature count reaches 100 thousand.

[Update December 2023]

In the wake of the death of Zhu Ling, the victim in the poisoning murder case, I wrote a Weibo posting listing the errors in the petition text.

在中小学语文学习中，改病句或纠正错误用词是一种很好的学习方法，因为它能给我们留下深刻印象。但这种练习在英语学习中较少见到。这里举一例。2013年，有人在奥巴马白宫请愿网站We the People（“我们人民”）上发出请愿[1]
Invest and deport Jasmine Sun who was the main suspect of a famous Thallium poison murder case (victim:Zhu Lin) in China
全文如下：
In 1995, Zhu Ling as a Tsinghua university student was found out to be purposely poisoned twice by lethal chemical: Thallium, which leads to her permanent paralysis. It was indicated that Sun, her roommate, had the motive, and access to the deadly chemical. Jasmine Sun was investigated by police as suspect in 1997. But resources show that the case was mystically closed due to her family's powerful political connections. Resources also show that she changed her name and entered USA by marriage fraud.
To protect the safety of our citizens, we petite that the government investigate and deport her.
For more information on the case, please visit:
...
这里对英语的用词和语法做一些评论，以帮助大家学习英语。
1. Invest（“投资”）应为Investigate（“调查”）。这是一个不可原谅的、低级的错误！
2. main suspect of: 更常见的词组是prime suspect，其后的介词应为in，因为后面是case（“案子”）。
3. a famous Thallium poison murder case: famous宜改为high-profile或well-known，因为famous有褒义。Thallium poison应改作thallium poisoning，金属名首字母不大写，poisoning是动名词，指出这个case是什么样的。
4. Zhu Lin...Tsinghua university: Lin应为Ling；将关键的专有名词写错是不可原谅的、不负责任的错误！另外，Tsinghua university应为Tsinghua University。
5. was found out to be purposely poisoned: out应删去。
6. chemical: Thallium, which leads: chemical后冒号最好改为逗号，Thallium应为thallium，leads应为过去式led。
7. investigated by police as suspect: police前应加the，suspect前应加a（或the，因为她是唯一嫌犯）。很多华裔、印裔在写英语时常常省略不可省的冠词。必须记住这条规则：单数可数名词前需要冠词！
8. the case was mystically closed: mystically不如mysteriously妥当。
9. USA: 前面应有the，华裔、印裔经常犯这个错误。
10. we petite that: petite（“小巧的”）与petition（“请愿”）毫无关系。这是一个不可原谅的、低级的错误！可改为we request that或we petition the White House to...。注意petition如果作动词，它极少紧接that从句（那或许是不规范的用法）。

该请愿在收集到足够签名后，白宫的确作了答复，拒绝介入，因为要避免造成不恰当的影响，毕竟美国司法独立。但这项请愿被拒，它的文字拙劣、人名混乱是否也有一定关系呢？有点难以想象的是，有超过10万的签名，难道当时没有人指出这些严重错误？

[1] https://petitions.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/petition/invest-and-deport-jasmine-sun-who-was-main-suspect-famous-thallium-poison-murder-case-victimzhu-lin-china/

"主席" (Zhǔxí) was Chairman, is President

Nowadays, the Chinese head of state, "主席" (Zhǔxí, zhu3 xi2), is always translated as "president", not "chairman" as in the Mao Zedong's times, as in "Chairman Mao". But the English word "president" is almost always translated into Chinese as a different word "总统", which goes back into English definitely as "president", and never "chairman".

I'm curious about the time of the change from "chairman" to "president" as the English translation for "主席". According to Wikipedia, "The office [of President of the People's Republic of China] was formerly known as the State Chairman and the Chinese Zhǔxí still literally translates to this. The official translation switched to President after 1982 in conformity with Western terminology, although the Chinese word is still used to translate other offices of 'chairman'". So the change occurred in 1982. What's special about that year? The English page of Wikipedia is not as clear as the Chinese page, which states that “中华人民共和国主席”职务自1954年召开第一届全国人大以后开始设立；1968年开始悬空；1975年通过的《宪法》删除有关“中华人民共和国主席”的条款，取消此一职务；1982年通过的《宪法》恢复了主席和副主席设置。 （The office of "President of the People's Republic of China" was established in 1954 when the first National People's Congress was held. It began to be vacant in 1968. The constitution passed in 1975 removed the clause with regard to "President of the People's Republic of China" and abolished this position. The constitution passed in 1982 re-established the positions of President and Vice-President.)

China in the early 1980's saw a hectic if not tumult transition, politically and economically. One element in these changes was conformity with the standards in the rest of the world. It's no surprise that the English word "chairman" for "主席", as the head of state, is replaced with the more common and less ambiguous "president".

Etymology doesn't play any role in the translation. "主席" literally means "the mat of the host" (or "the primary mat" since "主" has both meanings). "Chairman" is the man or person in the chair, while "president" originally means "sitting in the front" (Latin "Praeses"). Neither is significantly closer in meaning than the other to the Chinese word. But since both "主席" and "chairman" have a noun component in them, could that have been the reason why the 1950's and 1960's Chinese translators chose "chairman" instead of "president" as the English translation?

Having found the time the translation switched, we may conclude that there were two state chairmen in the history of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong and Chairman Liu Shaoqi, the latter in office from 1959 to 1968. After that, all we have are presidents, from President Li Xiannian (1983-1988) to the just elected President Xi Jinping (习近平).

Note that we're talking about head of state in this short article; the "Chairman of the Communist Party of China" and "Chairman of the Central Military Commission" remain to be "chairman". In connection to that, there's one minor special case to be dealt with. Mao Zedong intended to transfer his power to Hua Guofeng, a paramount yet weak leader of China after Mao's death in 1976 for a short time. Because of his insistence on Mao's principles and practices, there was a brief period when the phrase "英明领袖华主席" (wise leader Chairman Hua) became popular. Since he was not the head of state, the title "Chairman" is not equivalent to the latter-day "President", but only "Chairman of the Communist Party" and "Chairman of the Central Military Commission", two titles he did assume. It's possible, however, that the Chinese people back then would care less about this distinction, and unknowingly but incorrectly consider him as a successor to Mao in his full rights, including the state-of-head title of "Chairman", now called "President".

Reposting: Bilingualism and mental health

(Reposting from my other blog)

The January 9 issue of Journal of Neuroscience published an article Lifelong Bilingualism Maintains Neural Efficiency for Cognitive Control in Aging (full article). Although there's no difference in "simple working memory span" between mono- and bi-linguals, "older adult bilinguals switched between perceptual tasks significantly faster than their monolingual peers." And "older adult bilinguals showed a pattern of fMRI results similar to the younger adult groups: they outperformed monolingual older adults while requiring less activation in several frontal brain regions linked with effortful processing." "[T]he bilingual requirement to switch between languages on a daily basis serves to tune the efficiency of language-switching regions..., and that over time the increased efficiency of these regions comes to benefit even nonlinguistic, perceptual switching".

It's no more news that multi-language efficiency or simply studying a foreign language postpones Alzheimer's onset. (In a leisure-reading article I wrote, I almost gave up on finding a reasonable excuse for my study of foreign languages and reluctantly settled on possible prevention of Alzheimer.) But it's easy to lose sight of news that hints at the negative side of bilingualism. For example, in Cognitive and Linguistic Processing in the Bilingual Mind (full article), published in February 2010 of Current Directions in Psychological Science, we read "bilinguals typically have lower formal language proficiency than monolinguals do; for example, they have smaller vocabularies and weaker access to lexical items."

Lastly, if bilingualism has the same effect as more education on delay of the onset of Alzheimer, be aware that research shows that in spite of delayed onset, faster progression of the disease after onset is associated with more education.

Nevertheless, there're far more benefits reported in research than possible harm in bilingualism to mental health. There may even be more, although possibly diminishing, benefit in trilingualism than bilingualism, but no research has been conducted to my knowledge. In a nutshell, cerebral stimulus as in language study is highly recommended in our natural aging and should be followed throughout the life, not to be terminated when you no longer need to take exams or when you retire.

2013 New Year's Wish: Less new usage of 被 (bei)

被 (bèi) is the character denoting passive voice of a Chinese sentence and optionally serves as the preposition "by" in front of the acting agent, as in "树被吹倒了" (The tree is blown down) or "树被风吹倒了" (The tree is blown down by the wind). But in recent years, Chinese netizens have been using this character in a new sense: a prefix to an intransitive verb or even a noun or adjective, as in 被自杀 ("bei-suicide", or literally "be suicided"), 被精神病 ("bei-psychopath", or "be psychopath'ed"). This intentionally ungrammatical new usage of 被, where 被 is roughly equivalent to "forced to (acknowledge)", reflects Chinese Internet users' discontent about the much to be desired legal and political system. Hopefully, the new leaders of the government will usher in an era of an improved system and as a side effect, bring this new sense of 被 to the end of its short, ugly, "un-harmonious" linguistic period, naturally not 被-ended. That's my 2013 New Year's Wish.

[2018-08-24 Update] Sighting of a figuratively passive voice usage of an intransitive verb: Jstor Daily article The Stolen Children of Argentina, "Between 1976-1982 some 30,000 Argentines were “disappeared,” their children seized by the junta. The Abuelas—the Grandmothers—of the Plaza refuse to forget."

Not to introduce a sentence topic with "For"

It's not uncommon to hear Chinese speaking English say "For" to introduce a sentence-level topic, e.g.

The two programs, A and B, work together. Program A is easy and we already talked about it. For Program B, I don't know if we can work on it now.

Obviously, the word "For" should be "As for", "As to", "Regarding", "As regards", "Concerning", "As far as ... is concerned", or "When it comes to". But for some reason, many Chinese use the single word "For".

A Chinese sentence can be preceded by a standalone topic noun phrase for emphasis or other reason, as in

程序B，我不知道我们现在是否可以做。

(Program B, I don't know if we can work on it now.)

while the literal English translation in the parentheses is less common. This is technically called fronting (in the Chinese sentence) and left-dislocation (in the literal English translation). But I don't think that can explain why so many Chinese artificially introduce the noun phrase with "For".

A joke about Chinese calligraphy in inscription

It's common practice in China to have a well-known calligrapher or a government official to write the name of a famous building, bridge, or tower, in Chinese paint brush, to be used as inscription on the entrance or facade of the architecture. The ideal person is an official and calligrapher two in one. The less ideal is one of two, which one preferred depending on who you talk to. If the calligraphy is beautifully carried out and the name or title of the architecture is easily recognized, the inscription definitely enhances the beauty and value overall. But the two criteria may not match all the time.

One particular case is the inscription "山东博物馆 " (shan1dong1 bo2wu4guan3, Shandong Museum). On October 9, 2011, somebody first suggested a possible alternative reading of the cursive writing, "心系情妇那" (xin1 xi4 qing2fu4 na4, heart tied to mistress there). On October 21, more possible readings "山东情妇馆" (shan1dong1 qing2fu4 guan3, Shandong Mistress House) and "心系情妇波" (xin1 xi4 qing2fu4 bo1, heart tied to mistress wave or bosom), and it starts to evolve into a short story. A day later, "山东情妇报" (shan1dong1 qing2fu4 bao4, Shandong Mistress Newspaper) was suggested, and the full story was completed:

十一期间一对儿情侣在山东博物馆游玩，小伙子凝视着博物馆上面的字说：“书法写的不错啊，心系情妇那！” 女孩说：“你傻B啊！明明是山东情妇馆！贪官的情妇都关这里面了！” 这时，一个路人经过，听到两人的对话，心里暗暗想：两个2货！不认识字还在这装有学问！明明是心系情妇波！！

(During the October 1 national day holiday, a couple were touring around Shandong Museum. The guy stared at the inscription on the museum building and said, "Calligraphy not bad, 心系情妇那!" The girl said, "You stupid! It's obviously 山东情妇馆. The corrupt officials' mistresses are locked in there!" A passer-by heard their talk, and thought to himself: two idiots pretend to be educated not knowing how to read, it's clearly 心系情妇波!)

You judge the reading. Here's the image:

If the above image is not shown, this smaller image is from the official web site:
http://www.sdmuseum.com/hy/001.jpg

"谢谢叔叔!" "Thank you Uncle" said not to a family relative

In a crowded bus in China, a middle aged man sees a young kid standing by him. He stands up and yields his seat to the kid, who says to him "谢谢叔叔!", literally "Thank you Uncle!" Can a non-family-relative be called uncle, aunt, grandma or grandpa? I posted a question to a language discussion forum, because I read, in a German language textbook, "Kinder, das ist Onkel Schmitt aus Amerika" ("Children, this is Uncle Schmitt from America"), which prompted me to think that a non-relative can be called uncle in Germany.

The discussion was quite active, with most responses providing cases where a non-relative can be called uncle in different parts of the world in different languages, even in the US. But there're some nuances in usage: in most cases, if the name follows the title, it becomes more acceptable (just "Uncle" may be rare but "Uncle George" is acceptable in many situations); this addressing is more popular in a rural area; and it was used more than it is now.

Keeping those minor differences in mind, I would summarize three types.

(A) Even a stranger on a bus may be called aunt, uncle, grandpa, grandma, older brother/sister, not followed by a name. Countries having this usage: Japan, China, possibly many other Oriental countries.
(B) A good friend may be called aunt, .... Countries: UK, Turkey, Germany,...
(C) Only family members or relatives are addressed like this. Countries: US,...

The above distinction is definitely changing in time and varies from place to place even inside one country or culture zone. I've been in the US for only 20 years and never lived in a rural area. I won't be surprised if a neighbor is called Uncle George by all kids on the street. But that's probably very special, only for specific persons deserving this dearly respect in a small area, not generally applicable. So I don't consider it to be type (B).

An example in type (A) is at the beginning of this posting. Here's another one. A Chinese greets his male same-age friend at the door. If the friend is a Chinese (or Chinese American), the father would like his child to say to his friend "叔叔好！" (literally "Hello Uncle"). But if the friend is not a Chinese, this greeting ("Hello Uncle") would be awkward and confusing to say the least.

The three types do not include cases that are too informal, or if the title applies to only a very specific person in a specific group (imagine a well respected old man in a church where everyone dearly calls him "Grandpa"). The reason for these exclusions is that in these cases, these family relative names can be used across all cultures, not culturally sensitive or interesting.

Needless to say, there's nothing absolute, especially the distinction between (B) and (C). It's more like a continuing spectrum. At one extreme, a stranger on the bus can be called "uncle" if he yields his seat to a little kid, who would say "Thank you, Uncle!". At the other extreme, the man has to have fairly close relationship with the child or his parents to be addressed that way. It's the degree of the closeness, maybe among other factors, that maps into the continuing spectrum.

Translation: "Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set"

Francis Bacon's Of Beauty has "Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set". What is exactly "best plain set"? According to leonAzul on this page, it means, best if placed against or in front of a plain setting or background. Hence my translation:

品德犹如宝石，于平实的衬底前最优

水天同, perhaps the best Chinese translator of Francis Bacon's works, has the same understanding, with this translation:

才德有如宝石，最好是用素净的东西镶嵌

compared to others'

德行犹如宝石，朴素最美  <-- Not right
善犹如宝石，以镶嵌自然为美  <-- Correct
美德好比宝石，在幽暗背景的衬托下反而更显名贵  <-- Over-"translated"; where's 幽暗?

(The above Chinese translations are collected at fang's BLOG.)

"NBA" as an entry in Chinese dictionary

In the August 28, 2012 issue of "北京晚报", it is reported that more than a hundred Chinese scholars signed a letter sent to the Chinese government claiming that the de facto official Chinese dictionary 《现代汉语词典》 is illegal to include 239 words which begin with a letter of a western language, violating certain laws that govern the correct usage of the Chinese language. "NBA" is among the words. This news was followed by intense debate on the Internet ([1], [2], [3], [4], to name the first few). The scholars worry that gradual introduction of 字母词 or letter-words will eventually cause harm to the Chinese language, calling it "the most serious damage since the Chinese character Latinization (Romanization) initiated a hundred years ago". The pro-letter-word side of the argument claims that the Chinese language has been evolving all the time for thousands of years, and that introducing "NBA", "PM2.5", and other letter-words into the most popular dictionary helps the general public easily understand these terms which are already widely used. When CCTV changed "NBA" to "美职篮" (literally "US professional basketball"), the Chinese NBA viewers simply ignore the term and continue to say "NBA" in conversation. CCTV changed back to "NBA" as soon as the Chinese dictionary was published, semi-officially approving "NBA" as an acceptable word in the Chinese language, and more than raising the eyebrows of a handful of die-hard Chinese language scholars.

To be fair, a dictionary of a spelling language (language whose writing system is alphabet-based) never lists a Chinese word as is. An English dictionary never has a non-Latin spelling entry, thus excluding not just Chinese, but any Oriental language, Hindi, Arabic, any Slavic language, and many others as well. To incorporate "饺子" into an English dictionary, the spelling "jiaozi" is used. Now, if we need to have this "symmetry", we must add to the Chinese dictionary a Chinese-character-transliterated word such as "摁逼诶" in place of "NBA". It looks funny though. Why? I guess it's because the users of the word "NBA" in China are used to it and appreciate its simplicity. (How long do your eyes stay on "摁逼诶" for your brain to process the same info as "NBA", even if your native language is Chinese?) If this had happened a century ago, "摁逼诶" would most likely have been accepted in preference to "NBA". But nowadays the Chinese audience of "NBA" are at least able to pronounce English letters. The beauty of simplicity rules. Considering the law of survival of the fittest almost equally applicable to linguistics, I don't see a bright future for "摁逼诶" or any other transliteration.

Hence the dilemma between two rules: the established rule of dictionary compilation, and the situational usage of a word in the population. Because a Chinese character is intrinsically more difficult than a Latin-based word, incorporating "jiaozi" instead of "饺子" in a dictionary of Latin-based language is natural. But on the Chinese language side, the two rules are having a tug of war. Leaving "NBA" or any letter-word out of the Chinese dictionary retains its purity but increases inconvenience of a general reader -- he has to consult another dictionary. The awkward "摁逼诶" in the dictionary would be useless because nobody and no media would likely adopt that spelling.

My take on this: The Chinese dictionary can have an appendix listing the commonly used letter-words, without not yet accepted Chinese transliterations ("麦当劳" is OK but "摁逼诶" is not). It avoids the dilemma by explicitly stating that these words are not Chinese and yet they frequently occur in Chinese text. Inclusion of them is merely for the convenience of readers.

P.S. With the ubiquity of the Internet, this debate may become irrelevant and eventually forgotten, as the Chinese readers that care about "NBA" or any letter-word have easier access to the web for the meaning of the word than the paper-based dictionary. Although this particular dictionary, with no online version, serves as a prescriptive guide in mainland China, its definition of the letter-words may not be as authoritative as the scholars wish it would be.

"第几" has no English equivalent

It's a frequently asked question in English study forums in China (recently here). How do you say "第几" in English? When A asks B, "这是你第几次来纽约?" (literally, "This is which time you come to New York?"), B may answer "第二次" ("The second time"). A more natural English question may be, "How many times have you come to New York?", "Twice", or "How many times did you come to New York before?", "Only once (before)".

The awkward "which time" is a literal equivalent of "第几次" as in "Which time is it you come to New York?" The English "time" is one word for both the time you use a clock to keep track of and the ordinal count of repetition of you doing something, which is a measure word. Other languages may use two words for these meanings (时间, Zeit, tiempo, temps, tempo vs. 次, Mal, vez, fois, volta, respectively). The reason "which time" sounds unnatural may be related to this particular polysemy (one word having multiple meanings) of English "time".

Here are more challenging ones, "第几个", "第几件", and "第几本", as in "老师要我们读John Smith的ABC系列的所有三本书，你在读第几本?" ("The teacher wants us to read John Smith's all three books in the ABC series. Which book are you reading now?") But "Which book are you reading?" is not a good translation because the answer may well be "I'm reading his Book Title". The question in Chinese actually demands the answer "I'm reading his first|second|third book". English "which" properly matches "哪一(本)". It does not specifically ask the ordinal number as the Chinese "第几(本)". The fact that these Chinese question words are more challenging is probably because "个" and "本" have no measure word equivalents in English, and although "件" may be "piece", "Which piece ...?" does not specifically demand an answer of the ordinal number in the series.

A little follow-up. A Chinese reader says "So English is deficient?" My answer is that every language may have stronger expressive power than another in one case, but less in another. In this case, Chinese wins. In the case of subjunctive mood, Chinese loses (you have to guess whether "如果我有1000块钱" is the counter-factual "if I had 1000 dollars", although "如果我是你" is definitely "if I were you"). In the textbook case of ambiguous English sentence "He hit the man with a stick", Chinese wins because you can't make up an ambiguous sentence in Chinese. And the list goes on.

(This posting has a follow-up.)