User Comments - johnb

Posted on: How to Protect the Environment

I think we (Americans) call the purely horizontal ones "moving walkways" as well. Though I think we say "moving sidewalk," too.

When I was in Hong Kong, I kept confusing my coworkers with my Americanisms. It struck me that Americans and Brits (Commonwealth-ers?) with a common language can't agree on things like elevator/lift, but Mandarin and Cantonese both use 电梯 (they just pronounce it differently). Though then there's that craziness with 1st Floor/Ground Floor... but it's best not to get into that :)

Posted on: How to Protect the Environment

自扶梯 [zìfútī] is the word I generally hear for escalator, though I know for a fact I've heard people call escalators 电梯 as well.

Posted on: Too Many Food Allergies

In my experience, southern Chinese are really, really specific with family member words, whereas northern Chinese tend to use more general terms unless there's a need to clear up some confusion. My wife just uses 表哥/表弟 for male cousins, and 表姐/表妹 for female cousins. Still four words instead of one, though!

Posted on: Introducing New Voices

Interesting. I am indeed an East Coaster (Florida... which depending on where you are in the state is either East Coast or Deep South, and in my case was more East Coast), and I didn't realize that it was a relatively new thing in the rest of the country. It's been used in advertising for as long as I can remember, but I guess retail advertising is pretty local.

Thinking about it, though, I can't think of an event that we commonly refer to as "Black Friday" -- I wonder if that's why we're more willing to use it to refer to a shopping day. Black Tuesday, yes, but I'm drawing blanks for Black Friday (I'm sure I'm wrong, because it certainly feels ominous to me). Looking at the list, the American ones are either relatively old, or relatively local.

Posted on: Introducing New Voices

We can only hope it will be quickly forgotten, so I will stop posting about it.

Eh, it's been called that for as long as I can remember. I agree it is an ominous sounding term, but it is what it is. I don't make the rules of American English, I just speak it :D

Posted on: Surfing the Web Chinese Style

互联网 is still quite common. It's nicely specific, too -- there are lots of different kinds of 网络, where as the 互联网 is specifically the internet.

Posted on: Considering an iPad

在国外，iPad分为两种——有3G及无3G——但在国内苹果专卖店只售卖无3G的。我估计这是因为苹果和中国联通（中国的唯一支持WCDMA 3G网络的移动网络供应商）谈不来，而苹果不愿意（或不被允许）在没得到移动网络提供商的支持的情况下开始出卖有3G功能的iPad。

当两家大公司冲突之时，最后受损的还是咱们消费者。

好的是，如果你在国外买一台3G iPad然后带它到中国来，你把一张普通的联通SIM卡裁切成micro SIM就能立刻上网。联通的WCDMA网络全面兼容iPad。

Posted on: Considering an iPad

呵呵，“你好，我叫魏沙" ('me' is too hard to work with name-wise)

Posted on: Considering an iPad

估计是因为苹果和中国联通还没达成相关协议。

Posted on: Considering an iPad

I admit, I'm a fanboy, but I love my iPad. I bought it six weeks ago at Shanghai's second Apple Store (the one in Hong Kong Plaza) and have been using it constantly ever since.