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Science Forum Index » Language Translation Forum » Miscellany...
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| Edward Hennessey... |
 Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:39 pm |
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Guest
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The wily proprietors of a Chinese eatery put the name of their
establishment ²ÍÌü (Dining Hall) into a malfunctioning machine
translator and got "Translate Server
Error" which is how they then represented the English name of the
restaurant on their
sign. If they had translated the Chinese for the original name (·Òë·þÎñÆ÷´í
Îó)via
a bilingual dictionary to check it--or asked a competent translator--
that mistake may
have been evident and this gem lost to the annals of unintentional
humor.A felix culpa
indeed. See: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/15/chinese-restaurant-c.html
My own gatherings this week have included one in an "atta boy" letter
that landed
here to my grateful reception. "Atta boy" is a commendatory slang
phrase which serially devolved
from "That is a good boy" to "That's a boy" to "That a boy" before
reaching its truncated culmination in the first
form most commonly used. This history aside, the real gem of the
letter was in the neologistic
invention of a new word "congradulations", which forged a picturesque
and wonderful amalgam
of congratulation and adulation.
Also, I encountered a misconception of an alienism used to describe
someone or some
thing going wild, frenzied or violently rampaging , "run amok". The
improvisational
rendering of the phrase found which gives cause to risible thought was
"run
a mock" which, perhaps, is a novel description of faking the original
phenomenon.
Some offerings in various places on the Internet yielded the following
on the origin
of the canonical phrase:
http://www.takeourword.com/TOW131/page2.html
The word, which can be spelled amuck or amok (the latter being
preferred), derives
from a Malay word, amoq, defined as ¡°engaging furiously in battle,
attacking with
desperate resolution, rushing in a state of frenzy to the commission
of indiscriminate
murder.¡± It was first borrowed by the Portuguese as amuco, and we find
it in a Portuguese
work of 1516. Its first appearance in the English record is in 1663,
when the Portuguese
form amouco was used. It was not until 1772, in the writings of the
explorer Captain Cook,
that we find the English form amock. The amok spelling appeared in
1849. The phrase run amok
dates back to 1672, when it was run a mucke in the work of Andrew
Marvell. In 1859 Thoreau
used it in his Walden Pond: ¡°I might have run ¡®amok¡¯ against society,
but I preferred that
society should run ¡®amok¡¯ against me.
http://www.psychologyauthor.co.uk/featured-extracts/factsheet/
1. What is a culture-bound syndrome?
A culture-bound syndrome (CBS) is a mental illness which is unique to
a specific culture.
An example of a CBS is a disorder which is locally known as Amok. Amok
occurs specifically
in south-east Asia. A person experiencing Amok begins by brooding and
then breaks out into
aggressive attacks against random victims. This outburst is followed
by sleep and amnesia
(this is where the term ¡®to run amok¡¯ comes from). Amok is accepted as
a mental illness in south-east
Asia, but is unfamiliar in other countries, including Britain.
Equally, anorexia nervosa can
be considered a CBS as it is primarily found in Western cultures.
http://www.baliblog.com/places-to-go/regional-guides/amuk-bay-east-bali.html
Amuk Bay in East Bali includes the coastal towns of Candi Dasa and
Padangbai (¡¯padang¡® is Balinese
for grass, ¡®bai¡® is Dutch for bay). The name of the bay is famous
after the term ¡® running amok.
When Balinese wanted to commit suicide, they would (as usual) bottle
their emotions, then explode
in anger, running around attacking anyone in sight, knowing they would
be put to death by the other
locals (love civilization don¡¯t you!). The expression spread around
the English speaking world, but
this is the birthplace.
As any visitor to the area can tell you things are slow, but if you
want a mellow place to relax,
that is on the coast and within 2 hours of Kuta, Amuk Bay will work.
Verily.
Regards,
Edward Hennessey |
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