quote[quote]I was just reading a thread where someone referred to Lee TengHui as Li Denghui. What the hell is that about? [/quote]
At least that person -- who is not a moderator -- correctly followed a known, effective system. I note that you didn't bother to write the former president's name correctly either, according to the criteria you gave. Lee Teng-hui, not Lee TengHui. And in proper Wade-Giles -- which, as lots of others have pointed out, is almost never seen here -- it would be Li Teng-hui. And in Taiwan's current official system, MPS-II, it would be Li Deng-huei. And on and on and on.
If you really want to get into the romanization aspects of this again, feel free to start another thread in the Culture & History forum, or join one of the diverse ones already on that topic.
Lee TengHui or Lee Teng-hui. That is being slightly pedantic. Li Denghui is changing the man’s offical romanized name. Guess I need to find out what is on his passport.
Anyway, just leave my romanization alone. I guess I don’t really care what you moderators use as long as I can comprehend it.
quote[quote]Lee TengHui Lee Teng-hui. That is being slightly pedantic. Li Denghui is changing the man's English name. [/quote]
As long as you're going to be picky (and wrong), I'm going to keep on being pedantic about this.
Pedantic note for this message: Lee Teng-hui (no matter how it's spelled) is not an "English name."
[img]images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]
quote[quote]Cranky, Sorry I got off topic.[/quote]
OK, OK. Sorry, too. I promise not to replace your spellings with hanyu pinyin ones -- not that I ever have anyway -- though I reserve the right to insert hanyu pinyin for clarity if I think it's necessary (following Bu Lai En's model). Peace, Hobart?
As long as everyone is wondering about how to spell and edit the Chinese words we write with a Roman alphabet, I need to know something. Will anyone be changing the spelling of my English words? I mean, if I write “theater” or “theater”, which way would be correct. More importantly, if I write “I’ll try to knock you up tomorrow morning.” will I be censored as I should be were we in the United States?
quote[quote]if I write “theater” or “theater”, which way would be correct[/quote]Tough decision, but considering you spelt them the same way, well I’d say, mmm, um, well either for me.
Well, I’m for Hanyu Pinyin, but not rabidly so, as some posters and moderators in this forum seem to be, so here’s what I think.
As far as personal names go, I’m definitely with Hobart. If the official spelling (or personal preference, what do I know) of Lee Teng-hui is Lee Teng-hui and not Li Denghui, then Lee Teng-hui is the way it should be spelled in ABC (or English or whatever you may want to call it), and no other way. After all, if you spell your name Jeff, you don’t want to see it as Geoff, right? It’s the same thing.
Now the romanization of Chinese words in general is a completely different thing, as we have clearly seen here on Oriented.
But I also agree with Hobart that if I choose to spell in a certain way that may not tally with moderator ideologies, then no one should change the way I spell it. I may have my own ideologies and may be making a deliberate point in the same way as the Hanyu Pinyin advocates are, and why should their opinions weigh heavier than the original poster’s? After all, it’s his or her opinion. If the moderator doesn’t agree, he/she is very welcome to say so in a post under his/her name. I mean, as C.H. Lin tried to say (theatre - theater) if I like to use British spelling, should we have someone change all that to US spelling, or the other way around, just because it tickles a certain moderator’s fancy? I think not.
And the argument that Taipei City government has decided to go for Hanyu Pinyin… Is this a forum for Taipei residents only? If it was, maybe (say maybe) this would be a valid argument, but since it seems that there is the odd poster from outside of Taipei, then posters should be allowed to romanize Chinese differently from Hanyu Pinyin if that is the preference of the poster.
And here I thought JeffG “corrected” CH Lin’s spelling
That moderators standardise the romanization in this forum is admirable. Bri’s suggestion to include the poster’s original spelling in parentheses makes sense – although I expect many of us who do not romanize in a standard way do not know the rules and appreciate that someone who does know is making some effort.
I don’t find the analogy to American English vs. British English a good fit. This isn’t necessarily a Pinyin vs. W-G vs. (take your pick). A lot of the time, it’s simply “some romanization standard” vs. “something-that-sort-of-sounds-like-Chinese”.
In other words, it’s not “theater vs. theatre”, it’s “theater vs. thiih-eight-orhh”
Here’s one of the main points of my previous post: If Hobart or someone else deliberately avoids Hanyu Pinyin to make a point, then his point should not be altered to reflect the moderator’s point of view, which is in effect what happens when a moderator changes a post he/she personally feels is politically incorrect because it doesn’t use Hanyu Pinyin. If moderators feel strongly about it, I guess Bri’s suggestion of adding the Hanyu Pinyin in parentheses is acceptable if they are afraid that people will not understand what the original post is about. Otherwise I really cannot understand why moderators should impose their opinions on posters to these forums.
It’s basically the same thing as when I had a moderator going into one of my posts, editing it for content and adding emphasis that I did_not_want, without even stating that the moderator had made these changes, making it seem as if the opinions stated actually were mine, when in fact they were the moderator’s!
Great feedback. I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue and I think I’m going to follow Bri’s idea, that is to have two spellings - one Hanyu, the other whatever mishmash romanization was originally posted. Interestingly, despite all this “controversy”. nobody seems to be interested in posting in pure Wade-Giles or Yale or Tongyong - whatever Tongyong is - have they finalized a version yet? I will not alter the spelling of people’s names unless the attempted spelling is grossly different from the variations we have come to expect. My original reasoning was that since Taipei is officially following the Hanyu standard and replacing random spellings with a standard one, we should support them, especially since the standard is one that so many foreigners here support.
P, I also disagree with moderators adding content to a post and/or emphasis, especially without alerting the original poster and the readers. Have you contacted the moderator concerned about the specific post? I’m sure she/he would take seriously any complaints you have.
quote:Originally posted by Maoman:
P, I also disagree with moderators adding content to a post and/or emphasis, especially without alerting the original poster and the readers. Have you contacted the moderator concerned about the specific post? I'm sure she/he would take seriously any complaints you have. [img]images/smiles/icon_cool.gif[/img]
It only happened that once, and since it stayed the way I wanted it after I changed it back, I never did bother bringing it up with the moderator in question. If it were to happen again, though, I would contact the moderator directly. I only brought it up here to make a point about changes to posts.
Do you want Oriented to become a breeding ground for this?
Therefore, please change
MinQuen E Road
to
MinQuen E Road [ MinQuan -Ed. ]
or whatever. The idea is that they see they were wrong, and feel
sorry. Also it is a warning to future offenders. If they are using
some wacko pinyin system on purpose, then we are well, just offering
the real spelling for comparison, in case anybody actually needs to
read their post. By the way, I think Minquan looks more educated than
MinQuan but I won’t make a fuss about it lest it derail the general
hanyu pinyin momentum.
By the way, you report Ma Yingjiu has been diligent on implementing
hanyu pinyin. As even with Taibei’s traffic cameras being on the
Internet, I can’t really monitor the progress from here. Maybe you
might make a separate progress report discussion thread. As far as
how Ma Yingjiu really spells his English name, well, under my aloof
“gone native” lifestyle, I get all my news from Feidie and Zhongguang
radio stations, so as you expect, it’s all in thru the ear, out thru
the keyboard, with as much knowledge about some special spellings as
any Taiwanese, i.e. nil. Besides, as self appointed chairman of the
Red Army Pinyin Bureau, Taiwan Sub-Bureau, I couldn’t just use some
brand of pinyin I say, picked up off the street, of course.
As for “curse words”, I think that since we are all adults, we should be able to use whatever language we want.
However, I feel differently about posts which include name-calling, threats, and extreme hatred. I think they should be deleted by the moderator, and I think if the person repeatedly acts this way, then the moderator should write an e-mail to the person and tell him/her that he/she had better grow up.
ABCguy24 is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. He has repeatedly made extremely insulting remarks, called people offensive names, and even made threats of physical assault. Here are some examples of what ABCguy24 has said in his recent posts:
quote[quote]You can take your hypocrisy and shove it where the sun don't shine you arrogant insignificant little pissant.[/quote]
quote[quote]You're pathetic and no wonder you have to fly abroad to get laid. No western woman in their right mind would ever touch a troll like you. How much do you pay your hookers for them to "love" you?[/quote]
quote[quote]No wonder you act like an ass. Aussies have a reputation for being intolerant blockhead anti-asian bigots.[/quote]
quote[quote]I bet you'd be gargling blood with a mouthful of broken teeth if you said that to my face.[/quote]
quote[quote]I'm fairly confident none of you slabs of fat could go toe to toe with me anyways.[/quote]
All of the above are actual quotes of what ABCguy24 said in the thread he started called “Debunking the foreigner relationship”.
I think remarks like these should be deleted by the moderator because they are extremely offensive. If someone replied to something I said with a remark like this, I would feel very offended and even hurt.
What do other people think? Do you think offensive posts should be deleted?
quote:Originally posted by Hobart:
I am not sure if it is your forum or someone elses, but I do not like people re-editing the posts to change the romanization to HanYu PinYin.
Hobart - You sparked acres of woffle with that comment - but has any moderator actually ever pinyinised your spelling? Otherwise all the ensuing arguments about this and that pinyin are rather a waste of cyberspace.
By the way, I am a Hanyu pinyin zealot and so would you be if you had to do my job. All the messed-up spellings have wasted hundreds, no, thousands of hours of my time, since my work involves editing postal addresses. Do you have any idea how many ways there are of spelling Xizhi? The latest one I have seen just today is Hsi Cher. But the funniest spelling I have seen is for the town of Dadu…A company that is located there spelled it Big Tu. Really!
but has any moderator actually ever pinyinised your spelling?
It’s happened to me before. Not a big deal, but I would prefer that the original be left alone and the pinyin be added in parentheses. Of course, half the time I wouldn’t know which was pinyin and which was some bastardized version of Wade-Giles or some other system.
I don’ dig’ all da discussion about Chinese hanyu pinyin. Why don’ da moderators use ebonix so mo’ us can figure out what you saying? you know das right!
quote:Originally posted by Juba:
Hobart - You sparked acres of woffle with that comment - but has any moderator actually ever pinyinised your spelling? Otherwise all the ensuing arguments about this and that pinyin are rather a waste of cyberspace.
By the way, I am a Hanyu pinyin zealot and so would you be if you had to do my job. All the messed-up spellings have wasted hundreds, no, thousands of hours of my time, since my work involves editing postal addresses. Do you have any idea how many ways there are of spelling Xizhi? The latest one I have seen just today is Hsi Cher. But the funniest spelling I have seen is for the town of Dadu…A company that is located there spelled it Big Tu. Really!
Much better:
Yo buss dis. Hobart - You sparked acres uh woffle
wit dat comment - but has any moderator actually
evuh pinyinised yo spellin? Otherwise all de ensuin
arguments ‘boutthis an’ dat pinyin be rathuh a wuzte
uh cyberspace. By de way, I be a Hanyu pinyin zealot
an’ so would you be if you had to do my job. All de
messed-up spellins has wuzted hundreds, no,
thousands uh hours uh my time, since my wuk
involves editin postal addresses. Do you has any idea
how many ways dere be uh spellin Xizhi? De lates one
I has seen jus today be Hsi Cher. See what I’m sayin?
But de funnies spellin I has seen be fuh de da hood uh
Dadu…A company dat be located there spelled it Big Tu. Really! Sheeit!
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nagel:
As for "curse words", I think that since we are all adults, we should be able to use whatever language we want.
However, I feel differently about posts which include name-calling, threats, and extreme hatred. I think they should be deleted by the moderator, and I think if the person repeatedly acts this way, then the moderator should write an e-mail to the person and tell him/her that he/she had better grow up.
ABCguy24 is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. He has repeatedly made extremely insulting remarks, called people offensive names, and even made threats of physical assault. Here are some examples of what ABCguy24 has said in his recent posts:
Wow, two thumbs up for quoting everything I typed out of context while ignoring the original provocation and vitriol spouted against me by the other forum members. Gee, you aren’t showing bias in your viewpoints are you?
Sorry, but the truth is if someone like “Amos” made comments about my mother in real life like he did on this forum he would indeed be gargling broken teeth. That’s just the way it is…
ABCguy24, It’s a pity you seem so fit to settle your disputations physically. I guess you worked hard on it, kudos. But it is too obvious to others that you embrace the same tactics you decry. I have no doubt that you could “beat my ass” but I also don’t think you could carry on a reasonable conversation without resorting to hurling epithets or ad hominem attacks. Then again, I guess we all have our talents. Apparently one of yours it letting your emotions rule your intellect.
ABCguy24, your origional gargling broken teeth threat wasn’t directed at me. You just called me a blockhead anti-asian bigot. Actually you called all of Australia that.
And come to think of it, the mother line came from you first too. Although I did crack a gag about your sister, which you don’t have.
Ah doesn’t matter. I posted the mother reply before I and the ‘Oriented Community’ as a whole, knew what you were like. So I wasn’t sure what kind of response I’d get. Hindsight tells me that when you get angry, people get threatened, threads get closed and things get broken.
So, some advice to carry through life "sticks and stones mate …, and watch a bit of comedy on tv, it might lighten you up a bit. (no pun tended, don’t fire up)