Beijing - adulteration of a language

Last Sunday, the Star paper (http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/4/22/focus/17516325&sec=focus) had an article that related how a term used in Beijing had a rather negative connotation. It was " er bai wu" or two hundred and fifty. It seems that in days gone by, the Emperor of Qi offered a reward of 1000 gold pieces to the person who had killed his ambassador, on the pretext that the killer would be considered as a friend of Qi.

4 greedy guys came forward to claim the prize. As there were 4 of them, they suggested that they divided the prize equally. The Emperor then decreed that the punishment be equally given to them and told his guards to take the four er bai wu to have their heads chopped off!! Thus, the term er bai wu was used to mean an idiot, an imbecile.

Shanghainese uses a term that is more familiar to the Cantonese, i.e. Ser San Dian or Sap Sam Dim (i.e. thirteen o'clock) to mean the same thing.

This time in Beijing, I also noticed a perceptible influx of English words creeping into their daily usage. At a restaurant, the Taiwanese engineer was asking for a Cola (Coke that is) and he was asked " Ni yau ee tin mah?" What in the hell is ee tin, the Taiwanese asked? After a lot of hand gestures and sizing with the palms, it transpired that the waiter was asking if he wanted a CAN of cola. They were using the English word TIN for a CAN and not the Chinese/ Mandarin word "guan". China can claim that Taiwan is a province of China, but many words used and spoken today in Taiwan are very different from that used in mainland China. My Taiwanese guest apparently has problems in understanding many of the signs in China. And I was told I am "Wen Mang" as I can only speak the language and not read or write it. The Taiwanese are probably partially "Wen Mang" as well, especially when they are in the mainland

Other words in current usage
- COOL. Used exactly as in the English context.
- IN. to indicate something that is hip and current. If it is not, it is
- OUT.

With Olympics around the corner, maybe it is not a bad thing to have some English words in the language of communications.