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Chinese Proverbs
Many Chinese proverbs exist, some of which have entered English in forms that are of varying degrees of faithfulness. A notable example is " A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step", from the ''Dao De Jing'', ascribed to Laozi. They cover all aspects of life, and are widely used in everyday speech, in contrast to the decline of the use of proverbs in Western cultures. The majority are distinct from high literary forms such as xiehouyu and chengyu, and are ''common sayings'' of usually anonymous authorship, originating through "little tradition" rather than "great tradition". Collections and sources In the preface and introduction to his 1875 categorized collection of Chinese proverbs, Wesleyan missionary William Scarborough observed that there had theretofore been very few European-language works on the subject, listing John Francis Davis' 1823 ''Chinese Moral Maxims'', Paul Hubert Perny's 1869 ''Proverbes Chinois'', and Justus Doolittle's 1872 ''Vocabulary and Ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" is a common saying that originated from a Chinese proverb. The quotation is from Chapter 64 of the Dao De Jing ascribed to Laozi, although it is also erroneously ascribed to his contemporary Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C .... This saying teaches that even the longest and most difficult ventures have a starting point; something which begins with one first step. The phrase is also translated as A journey of a thousand miles begins from under the feet "and a thousand mile journey beings where one stands" References Chinese proverbs Taoist philosophy Quotations from literature {{tao-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellipsis (linguistics)
In linguistics, ellipsis (from el, ἔλλειψις, ''élleipsis'' 'omission') or an elliptical construction is the omission from a clause of one or more words that are nevertheless understood in the context of the remaining elements. There are numerous distinct types of ellipsis acknowledged in theoretical syntax. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis seek to explain its syntactic and semantic factors, the means by which the elided elements are recovered, and the status of the elided elements. Theoretical accounts of ellipsis can vary greatly depending in part upon whether a constituency-based or a dependency-based theory of syntactic structure is pursued. Background Varieties of ellipsis have long formed a basis of linguistic theory that addresses basic questions of form–meaning correspondence: in particular, how the usual mechanisms of grasping a meaning from a form may be bypassed or supplanted via elliptical structures. In generative linguistics, the term ''ellipsis'' has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Log
''Language Log'' is a collaborative language blog maintained by Mark Liberman, a phonetician at the University of Pennsylvania. Most of the posts focus on language use in the media and in popular culture. Text available through Google Search frequently serves as a corpus to test hypotheses about language. Other popular topics include the descriptivism/ prescriptivism debate, and linguistics-related news items. The site has occasionally held contests in which visitors attempt to identify an obscure language. Denham and Lobeck characterized ''Language Log'' as "one of the most popular language sites on the Internet". it received an average of almost 21,000 visits per day. In May 2006 Liberman and Geoffrey Pullum published a compilation of some of their blog posts in book form under the title ''Far from the Madding Gerund and Other Dispatches from Language Log''. Specialties ''Language Log'' was started on July 28, 2003, by Liberman and Pullum, a linguist then at the Universit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Etymology
Folk etymology (also known as popular etymology, analogical reformation, reanalysis, morphological reanalysis or etymological reinterpretation) is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar one. The form or the meaning of an archaic, foreign, or otherwise unfamiliar word is reinterpreted as resembling more familiar words or morphemes. The term ''folk etymology'' is a loan translation from German language, German ''Volksetymologie'', coined by Ernst Förstemann in 1852. Folk etymology is a Productivity (linguistics), productive process in historical linguistics, language change, and social relation, social interaction. Reanalysis of a word's history or original form can affect its spelling, pronunciation, or meaning. This is frequently seen in relation to loanwords or words that have become archaic or obsolete. Examples of words created or changed through folk etymology include the English dialectal form wikt:sparrowgrass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Word For "crisis"
The Chinese word for "crisis" () is, in Western popular culture, frequently but incorrectly said to be written with two Chinese characters signifying "danger" (, ) and "opportunity" (, ). The second character is a component of the Chinese word for "opportunity" (, ), but has multiple meanings, and in isolation means something more like "change point". The mistaken etymology became a trope after it was used by John F. Kennedy in his presidential campaign speeches and is widely repeated in business, education, politics and the press in the United States. Etymology Sinologist Victor H. Mair of the University of Pennsylvania states the popular interpretation of ''weiji'' as "danger" plus "opportunity" is a "widespread public misperception" in the English-speaking world. The first character () does indeed mean "dangerous" or "precarious", but the second, highly polysemous, character () does not mean "opportunity" in isolation, but something more like "change point". The confusion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese form, to learners already familiar with the Latin alphabet. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, but pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written in the Latin script, and is also used in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The word ' () literally means "Han language" (i.e. Chinese language), while ' () means "spelled sounds". The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by a group of Chinese linguists including Zhou Youguang and was based on earlier forms of romanizations of Chinese. It was published by the Chinese Government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as an international standard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Language
Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the world's population) speak a variety of Chinese as their first language. Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be variants of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered separate languages in a family. Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin (with about 800 million speakers, or 66%), followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shangh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johns Hopkins University Press
The Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publishes books and journals, and operates other divisions including fulfillment and electronic databases. Its headquarters are in Charles Village, Baltimore. In 2017, after the retirement of Kathleen Keane who is credited with modernizing JHU Press for the digital age, the university appointed new director Barbara Pope. Overview Daniel Coit Gilman, the first president of the Johns Hopkins University, inaugurated the press in 1878. The press began as the university's Publication Agency, publishing the ''American Journal of Mathematics'' in its first year and the ''American Chemical Journal'' in its second. It published its first book, ''Sidney Lanier: A Memorial Tribute'', in 1881 to honor the poet who was one of the university's first writers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
"A picture is worth a thousand words" is an adage in multiple languages meaning that complex and sometimes multiple ideas can be conveyed by a single still image, which conveys its meaning or essence more effectively than a mere verbal description. History In March 1911, the Syracuse Advertising Men's Club held a banquet to discuss journalism and publicity. This was reported in two articles. In an article in The Post-Standard covering this event, the author quoted Arthur Brisbane (not Tess Flanders as previously reported here and elsewhere) as saying: "Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words." In an article in the Printers' Ink, the same quote is attributed to Brisbane A similar phrase, "One Look Is Worth A Thousand Words", appears in a 1913 newspaper advertisement for the Piqua Auto Supply House of Piqua, Ohio. Early use of the exact phrase appears in a 1918 newspaper advertisement for the ''San Antonio Light'', which says: One of the Nation's Greatest Editors Says: On ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confucius
Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Confucius's teachings and philosophy underpin East Asian culture and society, remaining influential across China and East Asia to this day. Confucius considered himself a transmitter for the values of earlier periods which he claimed had been abandoned in his time. His philosophical teachings, called Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, and sincerity. His followers competed with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era, only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin dynasty. After the collapse of Qin and the victory of Han over Chu, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction in the new government. During the Tan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
