rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) (08/14/85)
In article <132@cadsys.UUCP> bbaker@cadsys.UUCP (William Baker) writes: >> Well, once again I've stumbled onto another incredibly BAD >> eating establishment. What's amazing is that it has just >> opened for business in the exact location of the last place >> I panned! >> >> Its name - Tai Pan (Inc.) >> > >Ironically, a tai-pan is the chinese word for the master of a whorehouse >or a public toilet. It's amazing the things you pick up from >reading too many James Clavell novels... Not necessarily. Many different Chinese syllables get transliterated the same way in English if only for the fact that distinguishing tones are not indicated in the transliteration. -- +--------------+-------------------------------+ | Rob Bernardo | Pacific Bell | +--------------+ 2600 Camino Ramon, Room 4E700 | | 415-823-2417 | San Ramon, California 94583 | +--------------+-------------------------------+---------+ | ihnp4!ptsfa!rob | | {nsc,ucbvax,decwrl,amd,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!rob | +--------------------------------------------------------+
ekwok@cadsys.UUCP (Kwok Ed) (08/15/85)
Being a native of Hongkong, supposedly around where the term 'TAI PAN' comes from, I am surprised to hear from some of you that 'Tai Pan' sometimes means the manager of a toilet or something to that effect. I have never heard of such usage of the term. To us, (My father, and my grandfather also, worked for/with foreign trading firms - non-Hongkong capital - most of his career), 'Tai Pan' is the top expatriate manager - like the president of a local subsidiary of a foreign firm. I think James Clavell used the term correctly. Furthermore, I have never heard a local referred to as a 'Tai Pan', so I think there is also the implicit qualification of being foreign to be attributed thus. Mind you, though, the term is NOT intended to be derogatory; most reference to 'Tai Pan' is respectful. Anybody else ?
neal@weitek.UUCP (Neal Bedard) (08/16/85)
In article <805@ptsfa.UUCP>, rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) writes: > In article <132@cadsys.UUCP> bbaker@cadsys.UUCP (William Baker) writes: > >> Well, once again I've stumbled onto another incredibly BAD > >> > >> Its name - Tai Pan (Inc.) > > > >Ironically, a tai-pan is the chinese word for the master of a whorehouse > >or a public toilet. It's amazing the things you pick up from > >reading too many James Clavell novels... > > Not necessarily. Many different Chinese syllables get transliterated > the same way in English if only for the fact that distinguishing > tones are not indicated in the transliteration. > -- If you believe James Clavell's *Noble House*, Hong Kong chinese prefer the title "loh-pan" to "tai-pan", and the "foreign devil" preference for "tai-pan" is a small joke to chinese, due to its meaning stated above. I don't think "loh-pan" and "tai-pan" are the same chinese word transliterated differently. They sound too dissimilar. -Neal -- "mynd you, m00se bytes kann be pretti nasti" UUCP: {ucbvax!dual!turtlevax,ihnp4!resonex,decwrl!amdcad!cae780}!weitek!neal
mkw0@bunny.UUCP (Maurice Wong) (08/16/85)
> In article <132@cadsys.UUCP> bbaker@cadsys.UUCP (William Baker) writes: > >> Well, once again I've stumbled onto another incredibly BAD > >> eating establishment. What's amazing is that it has just... > >> > >> Its name - Tai Pan (Inc.) > > > >Ironically, a tai-pan is the chinese word for the master of a whorehouse > >or a public toilet. It's amazing the things you pick up from > >reading too many James Clavell novels... > > Not necessarily. Many different Chinese syllables get transliterated > the same way in English if only for the fact that distinguishing > tones are not indicated in the transliteration. > -- > +--------------+-------------------------------+ > | Rob Bernardo | Pacific Bell | > +--------------+ 2600 Camino Ramon, Room 4E700 | > | 415-823-2417 | San Ramon, California 94583 | > +--------------+-------------------------------+---------+ > | ihnp4!ptsfa!rob | > | {nsc,ucbvax,decwrl,amd,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!rob | > +--------------------------------------------------------+ Right! When tones are missing, it's anybody's guess what the original Chinese characters are. To make things worst, we don't know if the transliteration is from Cantonese or Mandarin, or even some other dialects. As if that's not confusing enough, many transliterations are done without any distinction between 'b' and 'p', 'd' and 't', 'g' and 'k' (actually an unaspirated/aspirated distinction in Chinese, not the same as the voice/voiceless distinction in English), so that 'tai pan' might actually be any of the following: tai pan, dai pan, dai ban, tai ban Now add on top of that the tonal distinctions that are not shown--4 in Mandarin, 6 in Cantonese, the possibilities are numerous, even after eliminating specific tone and syllable cominations that don't exist, and eliminating characters that are not usually used as proper names. -- Maurice Wong ARPA or CSnet : wong%gte-labs.csnet@csnet-relay UUCP: ...harvard!bunny!mkw0