Category: Current Events

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Current Events

bō

bō ({wave (of water/sound/etc.)} [→ [unexpected turn of events]] 波) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Note: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”, tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to hide the “flashcard”.]

As of this writing, early in the year 2022, the subject of the COVID-19 pandemic has been, to say the least, on people’s minds now for a while. So, it would be good to be able to refer to things related to it in Mandarin when speaking to people in the Mandarin field, or when speaking to our brothers and sisters in the truth.

electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19

An electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19
Creative Commons Attribution License logo NIAID

This week’s MEotW, “bō ({wave (of water/sound/etc.)} [→ [unexpected turn of events]] 波)”, means “wave”, as in “fourth COVID-19 wave”. It’s the “bō ({wave (of water/sound/etc.)} [→ [unexpected turn of events]] 波)” in “bōlàng (bō·làng wave (of the sea) 波浪)”, a relatively well-known word which refers to a wave of the sea.

To say, for example, “fourth COVID-19 wave” in Mandarin, one could say:

“dì‐sì ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sì four 四) → [fourth]) bō ({wave of} 波) COVID-19”

Note that sometimes, people may put words like “yìqíng (yì·qíng epidemic · situation (used, e.g., to refer to the COVID-19 situation) 疫情)”, “làngcháo (làng·cháo wave · tide 浪潮)”, etc. after the above expression.

Google Wave Frequencies

The following tables of numbers of Google search results give us an idea of how frequently the above-mentioned contruction is used.

dì‐yī ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(yī one 一) → [first]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第一波" covid
("dì‐yī ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(yī one 一) → [first]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 1,890,000
"第一波covid"
("dì‐yī ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(yī one 一) → [first]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 15,600
dì‐èr ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(èr two 二) → [second]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第二波" covid
("dì‐èr ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(èr two 二) → [second]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 1,100,000
"第二波covid"
("dì‐èr ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(èr two 二) → [second]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 70,600
dì‐sān ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sān three 三) → [third]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第三波" covid
("dì‐sān ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sān three 三) → [third]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 1,150,000
"第三波covid"
("dì‐sān ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sān three 三) → [third]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 5,170
dì‐sì ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sì four 四) → [fourth]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第四波" covid
("dì‐sì ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sì four 四) → [fourth]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 164,000
"第四波covid"
("dì‐sì ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(sì four 四) → [fourth]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 5,510
dì‐wǔ ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(wǔ five 五) → [fifth]) bō (wave 波)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"第五波" covid
("dì‐wǔ ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(wǔ five 五) → [fifth]) bō (wave 波)" covid)		 711,000
"第五波covid"
("dì‐wǔ ((dì [pref to form ordinal numbers] 第)‐(wǔ five 五) → [fifth]) bō ({wave of} 波) covid")		 1,850
Categories
Culture Current Events History Technology

yún

yún ({cloud [(online)]} 云 雲/云) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

The magazine The World of Chinese recently posted on its website the article “Words to Sum Up 2021”. One of the words it listed was “yún ({cloud [(online)]} 云 雲/云)”, which can mean “cloud” literally, or “cloud” meaning “online”:

As the pandemic rages on, “cloud” services have become increasingly popular, including 云课堂 (yún kètáng, online classes), 云问诊 (yún wènzhěn, online diagnosis), and 云旅游 (yún lǚyóu, “traveling” by watching livestreams of scenic spots).

cloud computing
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Where “Clouds” Came From

This use of “yún ({cloud [(online)]} 云 雲/云)” to effectively mean “online” almost certainly came from the English use of “cloud” to mean “online”, since using those fluffy masses of condensed watery vapour in the sky to represent network-connected computer system resources evidently originated in the English-speaking world. As Wikipedia summarizes:

References to the phrase “cloud computing” appeared as early as 1996, with the first known mention in a Compaq internal document.[source]

The cloud symbol was used to represent networks of computing equipment in the original ARPANET by as early as 1977,[source] and the CSNET by 1981[source]—both predecessors to the Internet itself. The word cloud was used as a metaphor for the Internet and a standardized cloud-like shape was used to denote a network on telephony schematics. With this simplification, the implication is that the specifics of how the endpoints of a network are connected are not relevant to understanding the diagram.[source]

The term cloud was used to refer to platforms for distributed computing as early as 1993, when Apple spin-off General Magic and AT&T used it in describing their (paired) Telescript and PersonaLink technologies.[source]

BTW, the Mandarin term for Apple’s iCloud is…“iCloud”.

Categories
Current Events

Àomìkèróng

Àomìkèróng (Omicron 奥密克戎 奧密克戎) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

[Note: Tap/click on a Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to reveal its “flashcard”, tap/click on a “flashcard” or its Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) expression to hide the “flashcard”.]

As of this writing, near the end of 2021, the subject of the COVID-19 pandemic has been, to say the least, on people’s minds now for a while. So, it would be good to be able to refer to things related to it in Mandarin when speaking to people in the Mandarin field, or when speaking to our brothers and sisters in the truth.

electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19

An electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19
Creative Commons Attribution License logo NIAID

This week’s MEotW, “Àomìkèróng (Omicron 奥密克戎 奧密克戎)”, is one way to say “Omicron”—as in the Omicron variant of the virus that causes COVID-19—in Mandarin.

Another way to say “Omicron” in Mandarin is “Àomǐkěróng (Omicron 奥米可戎 奧米可戎)”.

To get an idea of how commonly used these expressions are compared to each other, consider the numbers of Google search results involving these expressions, together with “biànzhǒng (biàn·zhǒng changed · kind; type; variety → [mutation; variant; variety] 变种 變種)” (a past MEotW) and “biànyì zhū ((biàn·yì changed · {to be different} 变异 變異) (zhū {trunk of a tree → [strain]} 株) → [(virus) strain/variant])”, two common ways to say “variant”:

Àomìkèróng (Omicron 奥密克戎 奧密克戎)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"奥密克戎变种"
(Àomìkèróng (Omicron 奥密克戎 奧密克戎) biànzhǒng (biàn·zhǒng changed · kind; type; variety → [mutation; variant; variety] 变种 變種))		 696,000
"奥密克戎变异株"
(Àomìkèróng (Omicron 奥密克戎 奧密克戎) biànyì zhū ((biàn·yì changed · {to be different} 变异 變異) (zhū {trunk of a tree → [strain]} 株) → [(virus) strain/variant]))		 4,220,000
Àomǐkěróng (Omicron 奥米可戎 奧米可戎)
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"奥米可戎变种"
(Àomǐkěróng (Omicron 奥米可戎 奧米可戎) biànzhǒng (biàn·zhǒng changed · kind; type; variety → [mutation; variant; variety] 变种 變種))		 4
"奥米可戎变异株"
(Àomǐkěróng (Omicron 奥米可戎 奧米可戎) biànyì zhū ((biàn·yì changed · {to be different} 变异 變異) (zhū {trunk of a tree → [strain]} 株) → [(virus) strain/variant]))		 0

(Note that the quotation marks in the search terms tell Google to look for the exact sequences of characters that are inside the quotation marks—the results of searching without the quotation marks can be very different.)

Sounds Like…

Note that both “Àomìkèróng (Omicron 奥密克戎 奧密克戎)” and “Àomǐkěróng (Omicron 奥米可戎 奧米可戎)” are Mandarin expressions that were constructed, not because of the meanings represented by the Chinese characters used to write them, but because the Mandarin syllables used to say them sound like the English word “Omicron”.

In fact, when talking or writing in Mandarin about the Omicron variant, it is very common for people to just use the actual English word “Omicron”, which sounds more like the English word “Omicron” than anything else, and is not a Mandarin word written using the supposedly ideographic (representing meaning through visible symbols) Chinese characters.

Omicron
Search Terms Google Results Approx. No.
"omicron变种"
(Omicron biànzhǒng (biàn·zhǒng changed · kind; type; variety → [mutation; variant; variety] 变种 變種))		 3,880,000
"omicron变异株"
(Omicron biànyì zhū ((biàn·yì changed · {to be different} 变异 變異) (zhū {trunk of a tree → [strain]} 株) → [(virus) strain/variant]))		 2,850,000

It is no surprise to linguists (language scientists/scholars) that people naturally focus on what words sound like when spoken, because, while of course meaning is what, well, gives life meaning, one of the basic principles of modern linguistics (the scientific study of language) is that speech is primary, and writing is secondary. That means that God designed us humans to express meaning via language primarily using speech that is heard, not writing that is seen, no matter how much lovers of Chinese characters traditionally focus on that visually intricate writing system above all else.—1 Corinthians 14:8–11.