The random etymology of the day

[pooka]

My son used to tell a joke/trick where he gets you to calculate the number 14 and then asks you to think of a vegetable, and then asks you if it's a carrot. 

[Tante Shvester]

I live in the English-speaking world, and we have daikons over here.  They're in the supermarket, next to the Napa cabbage and bok choy.

[Annie Subjunctive]

I know! But we didn't, 20 years ago. And apparently people who write Chinese dictionaries don't buy a lot of vegetables.

[Tante Shvester]

Maybe you're part of the English-speaking world didn't have daikons 20 years ago, but my part of it (New Jersey) did.

[Annie Subjunctive]

Well, that last bit would depend on a number of things

I wish everyone would stop nit picking me when I'm totally right

I live in a world where I translate vegetables for people who buy me luo bo gao on a nearly daily basis. I know what I'm talking about.

Also, here is a daikon with a blue butt:

[Annie Subjunctive]

Maybe you're part of the English-speaking world didn't have daikons 20 years ago, but my part of it (New Jersey) did.

Your part of the English-speaking world is considerably more culinarily advanced than mine. In mine, most people still don't know what a daikon is, even though they walk past it every time they go to the store.

[Mucus]

I live in a world where I translate vegetables for people who buy me luo bo gao on a nearly daily basis. I know what I'm talking about.

*shrug* But your assertion is "if you showed a radish or a turnip to a Chinese person they would not know what they are", which is neatly contradicted since I live in a part of the world where Chinese-run supermarkets stock both Western vegetables and Chinese vegetables. Plus, you know, there's me

[Tante Shvester]

Sometimes I buy produce at the Hong Kong Supermarket, and the signs on the bins are usually either misspelled, poorly translated, or both.  There are several things that are labeled "Chinese Vegetible" or, even more mysteriously, "Chinese Ingrediant"

[dkw]

I was part of a Hmong cultural immersion class many years ago that involved a lot of food.  There was one herb that kept showing up that was just horrible, and finally I encountered it in a salad where it wasn't chopped very finely and I could identify the shape of the leaf.  I went to an Asian market and found it there and asked the seller what it was so that I would finally know the name of my culinary nemesis.  She consulted with several other people and finally came up with "greens."

[Annie Subjunctive]

I live in a world where I translate vegetables for people who buy me luo bo gao on a nearly daily basis. I know what I'm talking about.

*shrug* But your assertion is "if you showed a radish or a turnip to a Chinese person they would not know what they are", which is neatly contradicted since I live in a part of the world where Chinese-run supermarkets stock both Western vegetables and Chinese vegetables. Plus, you know, there's me

I know, but you're nitpicking when you know what I meant. I didn't mean "no one of Chinese descent anywhere in the world would be able to identify these vegetables." I meant "the average person living in China has never seen a turnip or a radish." I'm sorry for any misunderstanding my broad-blanket statement made. But I'm also a little tired of every single sentence I write being totally dissected. I'm a broad-brush communicator and an idealist and grow a little weary when I talk to hyperdetail  literalist people.

I fully aware that I am the main instigator behind this ridiculous conversation that should just die already. But it's also 1:30 in the morning and I have insomnia and I'm rather despondent about that since I have a very busy workday tomorrow and now I'm just talking nonsense on the internet again.

Also, I've been living in an apartment by myself for the first time in my life and I'm getting weird and despondent for human company way faster than I ever thought possible.

[Mucus]

Sorry, I didn't mean "it depends " all that seriously. I mean yes, I was hinting at different factors such as mainland Chinese vs. overseas Chinese vs. Chinese-Canadian, what it means to know something (whether you know the foreign name for something, the local name, or the scientific definition) and etc. etc. but I didn't intend it to be serious or prompting existentialist musings or anything since I know you didn't mean it 100% literally. I was mostly just goofing around.

I too speak in generalities often anyways, so meh. Sorry.

[BlackBlade]

I'm sorry your having it so rough Annie.  It was way hard for me to suddenly be alone and going to school again.  Almost as if I never got married or had a kid.  I'm not married to the topic we are discussing, as you said you started it.  But you must realize that when I say something about Chinese and you swoop in to correct me, a natural response to having put years into the discipline and being corrected by a relatively new student is to reestablish credibility.

My feelings aren't really hurt now, I'm moving on, and I hope you can just get to sleep.

[Annie Subjunctive]

I got that you thought I was "swooping in to correct" your Chinese, but I was trying to make the point that it's not about the Chinese expertise. I know exactly what you're saying and I'm not arguing that many people translate that word that way. What I was trying to point out is that the actual plants we're talking about are different, which is an aspect that falls between the cracks of dictionaries and language learning. That's why I kept linking to mulitlingual versions of wikipedia, because they give the scientific names of plants. So I'm not calling your Chinese wrong, and I hope you can see past the defensive reaction to see what I'm actually saying.

Sometimes relatively new students know very small things that people who have put years into the discipline missed. This doesn't say anything about your expertise and credibility. My point wasn't about Chinese at all, it was about scientific names of plants.

And I only slept four hours and I feel rotten and I don't know what's wrong with me.

[Jonathon]

And I only slept four hours and I feel rotten and I don't know what's wrong with me.

I think you just answered your own question. Heck, I feel rotten enough after only six hours.

[BlackBlade]

And I only slept four hours and I feel rotten and I don't know what's wrong with me.

Sounds like you have 失眠病。

My very first lesson this part summer was about insomnia and people discussing it.

應該治療你的症狀。

The lesson didn't cover how to deal with insomnia, only that it affects 1 in 3 people, and that we spend 1/3rd of our lives sleeping so that also is indicative of it's importance.  Do you have an exercise regiment in your daily schedule?

[Annie Subjunctive]

I very rarely have insomnia, so I really have no right to complain about it. And I run 3 times a week - last night I had gone running for a half hour a few hours before bed and I still just lay there thinking of a billion things.

It's probably stress. I have a billion things I'm supposed to get done in these next couple weeks.

[Tante Shvester]

And I only slept four hours and I feel rotten and I don't know what's wrong with me.

I think you just answered your own question. Heck, I feel rotten enough after only six hours.

I never get enough sleep and I always feel rotten.  I think I've decided that rotten is just normal for me.

[pooka]

I was able to find the root for a word my husband was trying to translate one time because I knew more Arabic theory than him, even though I can't converse in Arabic on a kindergarten level.  It was some weird word they had used to mean "know" in 1 Nephi 3:17, that happened to be a hollow root.

[Tante Shvester]

A monger has a pretty limited field of choices for mongering.  There's rumors, war and fish.  And those are pretty disparate things.  In fact, the only thing I can find in common for rumors, war, and fish is that they all stink.  And can be monged.

Are there any other things a monger can mong?  Why aren't there more things?  Why can't I go to a used car monger, for instance?

[Annie Subjunctive]

Or a shoe monger! I would totally get into shoemongering.

[Tante Shvester]

Payless Shoemongers!

[Jonathon]

A monger has a pretty limited field of choices for mongering.  There's rumors, war and fish.  And those are pretty disparate things.  In fact, the only thing I can find in common for rumors, war, and fish is that they all stink.  And can be monged.

Are there any other things a monger can mong?  Why aren't there more things?  Why can't I go to a used car monger, for instance?

Joe's a Scrabblemonger.

[Tante Shvester]

And a mensch.

[pooka]

"You, sir, are a scrabblemonger and a mensch."

[Kate Boots]

Fear and hate are mongered.  So are whores.