User Comments - sclim

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

Not at all, point well taken. I should read Australian Womens Weekly more often :). And I well remember as a child making fun of American speech inflexions; now I probably sound very close to what I mocked. You know, this brings up an interesting point. As a child I took Mandarin lessons. Our teachers were almost all local (Singapore) Chinese. So we never learned the distinction between si and shi; it was all pronounced si. Except for one lady teacher, who, in retrospect must have been from Northern China. She did her Shi and Er to retroflexive perfection; and it sounded so weird to us kids (i.e. "si" for是 and"e" for 儿 was "normal") that we mocked her. Shows you what ignorance can inflict on you.

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

My guess is that CP would stay away from any exposition on the use of colorful language, no matter how interesting us curious Poddies would find it, on the reasonable grounds that it might raise wrong impressions about the general tone of the CP series by people tuning in to that portion only and taking it out of context.

It is easy for us subscribers to say I want this or I want that: we don't have to live with the realities of management or promotion. I have the utmost respect for the niceties of management even from what little I can read between the lines. CP, for all its openness and helpfulness, still has to avoid running afoul of the shoals of the powers that be, one being business viability, and another being government scrutiny. I got a small dose of this realization following the very interesting discussion in the Car Decorations and Bumper Stickers lesson when the description came up about the Law Wheel Ornament. The discussion suddenly veered off, indicating some sensitivity about the subject which seemed on the face of it neutral and tame enough; but I looked it up independently, and I got it. I give CP credit for featuring the Law Wheel as one of the common Car Decorations, and understand now why they didn't translate it.

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

hey baba, us civilians need tone indicators to get it!

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

Relating to our previous exchange on "unlucky day" lesson...放鸽子我不管; 放鸽屎.我恨极了!

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

Hmm, without retracting anything I said before about "gonna"-- after all my comments were merely about how native speakers use the term -- maybe I agree with you; it falls into the category of non-natives using "improper" variant speech just like the natives do...often you can use it with greater effectiveness than the equivalent "formal" usage from the textbook if you do it correctly and well, but you run the risk of 1) sounding "quaint" because you're obviously not a native and fluent speaker, or, worse 2) you commit an error of judgement in where you use a term that in the wrong society can be considered coarse or offensive. So out of consideration for people I'm trying to help with their English, I'd probably tend to follow your advice. I must say, though, on the street, trying to learn, say, Chinese among friends, I would throw most of my caution to the winds, and try to imitate the speech of my friends, though, at the same time, I'd try to understand the informal rules governing such usage. Paying attention whenever they burst into laughter when I say something would be important.

Did you really mean "wanna" as being "less respectable" than "want to" ? Less intelligent, I might almost agree with, But less respectful, I don't think would be my take, as it obviously would not be intentional in the case of a foreign speaker. After all, this one error would likely be buried in a mass of other minor or perhaps less minor errors.

But I take your point regarding native speakers knowing what they are doing -- it takes a certain degree of proficiency i.e. achievable only by the advanced foreign learner to pull it off successfully, and part of this advanced training is to know that this is non standard usage, and to know the practical pitfalls of such usage!

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

Dilu: fyi, I use "pissed off" all the time, no problem, in conversations with my contemporaries and friends and family except with my parents-in law (87, 89 岁, and English, from England). Interestingly, I use it now with my children (25, 26 岁) comfortably, but only after they were above 15岁, but that was likely because I knew they were already using much coarser language than that with their friends! I probably would not have used it with Prince William and Kate of England who were in Calgary last week to see the Calgary Stampede, even if we were all wearing 牛仔衣服, 牛仔帽子, and they were 青年, because they were royalty. Sadly, I never got the opportunity.

So you are 90% accurate or more in this usage. Seriously, If my own Chinese gets to 20% of your English fluency, I'd be lucky!

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

(Again, please note I'm not ccclim, nor even a relative!) I think ccclim's reaction is merely a manifestation of the varied acceptablity of "pissed" across a wide spectrum of English users of all ages, from several continents, and likely quite a large variety of demographics and cultures. While I do not share his obviously intense reaction, I thank it's reasonable to accept that this is his/her visceral reaction, and to suggest that ccclim is wrong to have such a reaction because you yourself find the word perfectly acceptable in your circle of friends and correspondents is, I believe, to "diss" him unfairly. (I would of course urge ccclim to reconsider letting his subscription expire, particularly seeing as how CP was satisfying enough for him to keep on subscribing since 2007. Being offended because of an intentional affront is one thing, but his sense of offense surely would be mitigated by the knowledge that the usage was by a non-native speaker merely mimicking a speech pattern used by a certain demographic without realizing the potential for offense outside of that demographic).

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

More like "De gustibus non est disputandum", i'm afraid, which is where the discussion seems to be drifting.

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

(please note I'm not ccclim; it's remarkable how close our CP identities are in print!). I would point out that once you state

"there are no 'impolite' or 'offensive' words in any language,"

then you have ruled out the possibility of "pissed" being impolite, in the same broad sweep that you have ruled out any other word as being impolite.

I realize that you started out with the statement that you take issue with "polite" language. However, recognizing that language evolves does not necessarily mean that there is no concept of polite or not polite within the users of language. Indeed, there are all kinds of situations where it is appropriate or inappropriate to use certain types of words; politeness/impoliteness is only one of those categories of appropriateness or lack thereof. I understand you take issue with ccclim's reading of "pissed" as not polite. But to go the step further to say there is no such thing as "politeness" (I believe that is your position) strikes me as a disservice to so fine a tool as language.

Posted on: I'm gonna be Late

ps I should add that my knowledge lately is primarily in N American speech patterns and writing. It is possible that "ganna" is commonly written elsewhere, only I'd be surprised if it was, because I somehow never came across it before.