Spontaneous fun with words: 06 (London/Paris)

Just done a lesson with my student Hélène in Paris.

One of the sentences for translating into Chinese is a doctor telling the patient his heart and blood pressure are normal.

The Chinese word for “heart” is 心 xīn.  

If it refers to “heart” the organ, one has to add the generic 脏 zàng / “internal organ”: 心脏 xīnzàng / “heart internal-organ”.  

This is because it is also used in an abstract way.  For example, 

1. to think a thought to oneself (not articulated aloud), one says: 我心里想 wǒ xīn lǐ xiǎng / “I heart inside think” = I inside my heart think;
2. one says a kind-hearted person is 好心 hǎo xīn / “good heart”.

After I’d explained all this to my student, she said, without even realising she was doing a pun, “I’ll have to go and learn it by heart.”  Inspired word play!

(London/Paris, 2021)

Serendipitously inspired (London)

I was sweeping up the autumn leaves in the front yard on Monday when a Jewish next-door neighbour came over to chat.  Said he’d seen me working in the back garden before.

He said he and his brother run a construction company, called Mega, so I asked for a business card.  

Looked at the surname — Margolis — and asked if it meant anything.  He said, “Diamond.  Ruby.”  I said, “A gem.  Like your company name backwards.”  

If he had a chair to fall off, he would’ve, that very moment.  It’d never occurred to him before about the word play.

He said Mega was made up of M for Margolis, E for his name, G and A for his brother’s.

(London, 2018)

International Women’s Day / 三八婦女節 / 三八妇女节 (Taiwan)

The Chinese way of referring to dates is in this order: year month day.  

For well-known events, the convention is to shorten it to just the numbers for the month and the day, with people being expected to know which year it’d happened.  

So, the Tian’anmen Square incident, which took place on 4^th June 1989 (in Chinese: 一九八九年六月四号 / yìjiǔbājiǔnián liùyuè sìhào / “1989 year 6th month 4th day”), would be referred to as 六四 / liù sì / “6[th] 4[th]”.

International Women’s Day is 8^th March, so the Chinese would call it 三八婦女節 / 三八妇女节 / sān bā fùnǚjié / “3[rd] 8[th] women festival”.

In Taiwan, there’s a Chinese equivalent for the English expression “the lights are on but nobody’s home” (to describe someone who’s not entirely with it):  三八 / sān bā / “3 8”.  If you were to do or say something your friends consider daft, they’ll say you’re sān bā.  

During my two years in Taiwan, men would ask me on 8^th March, in Chinese, 

今天是不是三八妇女节 

jīntiān shì búshì sān bā fùnǚjié 

“today is not-is 3 8 women festival”

Is today the 3 8 women festival?

Every time, I’d answer “是 / It is”, which they’d immediately pounce on with, “So you’re saying that there is a festival for daft women then?!?”  

The parsing for their version would be:

三八妇女 sān bā fùnǚ (daft women) as one cluster 

and 

节 jié (festival) as one cluster, 

instead of 

三八 sān bā (March 8) as one cluster 

and 

妇女节 fùnǚjié (women’s festival) as one.  

The Chinese sense of humour just loves such word play and catching people out.  I fell for it every single time.

(Taiwan, 1975 & 1976)