It’s my impression that maoman is asserting that referentiality is based on having prior experience or at least agreement as to the object and the verbal usage to denote it. How classically Wittgensteinian of him, at least in my impression and according to my experience… 
[quote=“maoman”]
Aaaaah! Sandy! We’re not talking about LOCAL usage, we’re talking about FOREIGN usage. Presumably a foreigner with no knowledge of local names, either physical or personal, would HEAR a word and use “crappy pinyin” to express that word in writing. You say you would “know” what they are talking about, and EYE am asserting that apart from a handful of names with which you’ve had prior experience you would neither “know” the pronunciation nor the meaning. This has nothing to do with how locals represent their personal names or their place names.[/quote]
Then surely it should be foreigners – governments, schools, etc. – you should be campaigning to. Except they already use Hanyu, don’t they? The Taiwanese simply couldn’t care less, as has been painfully obvious for many years now. I would like very much if I could use Hanyu exclusively, but that’s not the case, as I work for Taiwanese, who insist on “their” (non) way of doing things. NOT because their non-way is better or more logical, but because they won’t have some bloody foreigner telling them what to do, no matter how logical or improved it is. And that’s a pervasive mindset here. And also, because like it or not, Hanyu is still seen as “the mainland” way, so many of them still reject it out of hand for that reason, too.
The top honcho where I work and who gets to have final say on these matters neither speaks nor reads English, by the way. And doesn’t deal well with accepting advice. He’s not an isolated case.
[quote=“sandman”][quote=“maoman”]
Aaaaah! Sandy! We’re not talking about LOCAL usage, we’re talking about FOREIGN usage. Presumably a foreigner with no knowledge of local names, either physical or personal, would HEAR a word and use “crappy pinyin” to express that word in writing. You say you would “know” what they are talking about, and EYE am asserting that apart from a handful of names with which you’ve had prior experience you would neither “know” the pronunciation nor the meaning. This has nothing to do with how locals represent their personal names or their place names.[/quote]
Then surely it should be foreigners – governments, schools, etc. – you should be campaigning to. Except they already use Hanyu, don’t they?[/quote]
Not according to the OP. And not based on my experience, either, which is why we have the auto-censor changing the most commonly misspelled names to orthodox spellings. The title of the thread is “What’s the deal with SOME FOREIGNERS insisting on crappy pinyin?”, remember?
Oh well in that case it’s easy, at least for the ones I know who produce English copy here – its what their employers insist upon. 
[quote=“maoman”][quote=“Icon”]1. We are lazy.
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We do not use it in our daily lives/work
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When we use it, we get shot down[/quote]
I get number one - people insist on using crappy pinyin when they are writing addresses to other foreigners because they are too lazy. But why would people inisist on using crappy pinyin when they are writing addresses to other foreigners because they don’t use crappy pinyin in their daily lives? And why would they insist on using crappy pinyin when writing to foreigners if they know they’re going to “get shot down”. It doesn’t make sense to me.[/quote]
Sorry I was not clear on the issue on writing pinyin to other foreigners. 
What I meant as writing pinyin in general:
-
We are lazy: we can get along using bopomofo. Using another system takes an effort as we are not accostumed to it.
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In my daily job, I use a fixed list of traditional usage for places names. Though I’ve tried to use pinyin -and here comes the 3rd point- I get corrected for not using the traditional form.
Therefore, because of lack of practice, my pinyin is crappy. When I need to explain something to other foreigners, I trust that old adage: “foreigners can understand foreigners Chinese”.
Oh well in that case it’s easy, at least for the ones I know who produce English copy here – its what their employers insist upon. [/quote]It’s my experience that most Taiwanese use SOME kind of pinyin standard - not the preferred one of Hanyu Pinyin, often, but at least if they’re using Wade-Giles, or Tongyong, or Gwoyeu Romatzyh, or Yale, or MPS ll. I haven’t seen many (any) cases of local authorities/employers insisting on non-standard spellings.
Nee tong woduh yeesih, ma? Yeeshay waigwo pungyow boo dung yow tsem ma shiey, soe tamin jiow shihr swaybean ping tsi. Zayguh gung taiwanrun mayo shernma kuanshee.
Or indeed a mixture of all of them, which is just as bad, isn’t it?
[quote=“Icon”][quote=“maoman”][quote=“Icon”]1. We are lazy.
-
We do not use it in our daily lives/work
-
When we use it, we get shot down[/quote]
I get number one - people insist on using crappy pinyin when they are writing addresses to other foreigners because they are too lazy. But why would people inisist on using crappy pinyin when they are writing addresses to other foreigners because they don’t use crappy pinyin in their daily lives? And why would they insist on using crappy pinyin when writing to foreigners if they know they’re going to “get shot down”. It doesn’t make sense to me.[/quote]
Sorry I was not clear on the issue on writing pinyin to other foreigners. What I meant as writing pinyin in general:
-
We are lazy: we can get along using bopomofo. Using another system takes an effort as we are not accostumed to it.
-
In my daily job, I use a fixed list of traditional usage for places names. Though I’ve tried to use pinyin -and here comes the 3rd point- I get corrected for not using the traditional form.
Therefore, because of lack of practice, my pinyin is crappy. When I need to explain something to other foreigners, I trust that old adage: “foreigners can understand foreigners Chinese”.[/quote]
Thanks for the clariciation, but:
- I see VERY few examples of foriegners using zhuyin fuhao to write things out to other foreigners, either on Forumosa or in real life.
- Traditional usage isn’t “crappy pinyin”. Most traditional usage adheres to one romanization standard or another.
- The OP isn’t talking about “traditional usage”, he’s talking about “crappy pinyin” - pinyin that doesn’t stick to one recognizable system or another, as indicated by the examples in his first post, eg, ’ T a a n District near to K u t i n g Station on J h o n g j h e n g Rd’ or ‘We can meet in K u n g k w a n’. These are neither orthodox pinyin nor examples of traditional usage. They’re a mishmash of (slightly corrupted) systems in one sentence in the first case, and a made-up pinyin system in the second case.
Foreigners should acquaint themselves with at least one standard (preferably Hanyu Pinyin, of course), and stick to it, rather than making things up as they go along.
Just asked one of the youngsters at work if he knew how to use Hanyu Pinyin.
He scratched his head and replied: Is that a program for the Mac?
Let me try this again - more on topic for this thread: from all i can tell the answer is “no”, but you and those who feel like you seem to be an insignificant minority. 
And as regards the topic of this thread: it is not clear that anybody using any writing system is insisting on using that any more than you and i can be said to insist on breathing. I’d say, people use whatever writing system they know to use…
Now if anything in my reply sounds dismissive, please be assured it is not meant to be: it addresses your question without straying from the topic. You can find my other reply, which was apparently off topic, in the [strike]Temp[/strike] Learning Chinese forum while it lasts (the reply that is). .
[quote=“mike029”]For example, I live in ’ T a a n District near to K u t i n g Station on J h o n g j h e n g Rd’, or ‘We can meet in K u n g k w a n’.
Nobody knows what that says.[/quote]
I do. I’m sure quite a few others that have been here awhile do to. 
[quote=“citizen k”][quote=“mike029”]For example, I live in ’ T a a n District near to K u t i n g Station on J h o n g j h e n g Rd’, or ‘We can meet in K u n g k w a n’.
Nobody knows what that says.[/quote]
I do. I’m sure quite a few others that have been here awhile do to. [/quote]
Only contextually. If that were a Nantou address, you wouldn’t know whether the OP meant Guding, Guting, K uting, or Kuding.
[quote=“maoman”][quote=“citizen k”][quote=“mike029”]For example, I live in ’ T a a n District near to K u t i n g Station on J h o n g j h e n g Rd’, or ‘We can meet in K u n g k w a n’.
Nobody knows what that says.[/quote]
I do. I’m sure quite a few others that have been here awhile do to. 
[/quote]
Only contextually. If that were a Nantou address, you wouldn’t know whether the OP meant Guding, Guting, K uting, or Kuding.[/quote]
I’m of the opinion that it (in any of it’s varieties) cannot be used any other way (contextually, that is). You can argue that it can be as complete as possible and foreigners (yes, only foreigners, since they are the ones that sometimes depend on it) can make an honest effort to use the same forms, but it’s really far from a perfect system any way you try to standardize it. Making bones about the way some people use something that is already in itself inherently flawed strikes me a bit as grandstanding. 
[quote=“citizen k”][quote=“maoman”][quote=“citizen k”][quote=“mike029”]For example, I live in ’ T a a n District near to K u t i n g Station on J h o n g j h e n g Rd’, or ‘We can meet in K u n g k w a n’.
Nobody knows what that says.[/quote]
I do. I’m sure quite a few others that have been here awhile do to. [/quote]
Only contextually. If that were a Nantou address, you wouldn’t know whether the OP meant Guding, Guting, K uting, or Kuding.[/quote]
I’m of the opinion that it (in any of its varieties) cannot be used any other way (contextually, that is).[/quote]
How so? Apart from the tonal issue, which is often not included when people write, pronunciation with standard systems is 100% predictable. I know exactly what the sounds are for Zhongxiao, Jh0ngsia0, and Chunghsia0. I don’t need any context. However, if people were to write Chengshiuw, I’d be lost.
Exactly, contextual on the presupposition that you can infer the correct sound. The OP’s argument just seems to be borne of frustration at not being able to do so. If able, then the argument becomes moot. Sooo…his assertion that we should all conform to a system that has been in place for what? A year or two and flipped and changed numerous times before that strikes me as a bit presumptuous. I mean, I may be a stickler, but I still go to the pub for a pint, not a glass of however many mL’s of beer it may be. By the same token, I’ve made the effort to learn, or at least be aware, of all of the many forms of romanizations in my time here…I really can’t be too bothered by someone who would call me out or make a fuss for using an alternate form on occasion.
Honestly, most of the time I can’t. :s
Exactly, contextual on the presupposition that you can infer the correct sound. The OP’s argument just seems to be born of frustration at not being able to do so. If able, then the argument becomes moot. [/quote]
I think you’re missing the point, ck. The first three examples are NOT “crappy” pinyin, they’re three different standards, and are therefore decipherable. The fourth example, “Chengshiuw” is crappy pinyin, because nobody would be able to guess either the meaning or the pronunciation from mutilated nomenclature like that - that word doesn’t exist in ANY romanization system.
I’m just engaged in a bit of armcharm philosophy and playing the sophist, but!
The OP openly says at the beginning of the thread that, “Now that Taiwan officially uses Hanyu Pinyin, there is absolutely no reason to use any other one. Any political argument is now gone.” He also says, to paraphrase, that none of us know this Bo Po Mo stuff, or something thereabouts. From that, every variation except for the Hanyu you quoted is crap. Perhaps I am able to know that Zhongxiao spelt in all it’s pinyin variations is what it is, but according to the OP, it’s crap. I find that a bit arrogant, or at the very least a tad uninformed.
I, too, recall a time about fifteen years ago standing in front of a street sign that said Chienkwo and wondering to some length if it matched the Jiangwo or whatever it was that the map I had said, so I can related to his frustration. But to say that all other romanizations besides Hanyu are crap just doesn’t wash with me: They historically have been the standard at some point or another and criticizing people for still using them today is a little like criticizing people here for still using traditional characters when the standard for the majority of the Chinese speaking world has shifted to simplified…Ridiculous, which is exactly my point.
Btw, I very much enjoyed the little passage you posted in crap pinyin on the previous page, so much so that I am considering Swaybean as a new screen name. Lovely, that was, and with a little effort and a bit of extrapolation based on inference, context and experience, I could actually understand what you meant! 
Well, I agree with the OP.
I’ve been here since 2002, and for most of that time all the street signs (I’m in Taipei) have been fairly standardised pinyin. That’s my reference, the street signs. If I’m looking for Heping Rd, I drive down Jianguo until I see a sign saying “Heping”
But if some idiot has told me to look for Hoping or Herping, then that idiot obviously doesn’t know much about Taipei. He might know plenty about how things used to be, back in the dark ages, but he’s not really paying attention to the way things have been for the best part of a decade.
Obviously, I’m not a newbie any more. I don’t usually need help to find an address. But if I meet someone who does then it’s pretty unlikely that person knows anything about how things used to be done back in the glory days. He’s going to read the street signs, so if he asks for an address I should give it to him in language he can understand. How hard is that?
Why is it so hard for some people? And why do you have to give the OP such a hard time for just asking you to spell things the same way as his guide book and map?
Perhaps because he should be at least be aware of the fact that he is using a referential lexicon for a language rather than the language (written) itself.
Like most locals, I don’t rely on an ever shifting lexicon of romanizations; if I need to know where something is, I ask…
I have no problem with foreigners using crap pinyin. But that’s probably because I do not come into contact with many foreigners that use such pinyin much at all…The notion that the OP can ask me to spell things the same way as in his guidebook strikes me as absurd, since if he insists on such precision, he should realistically be making the effort to use characters, rather than a romanization of such…
If he needed to get to Herping or Hoping or Heping, I would still put him in a cab a tell the driver where he needed to go. I doubt his guide book could do that much…Or perhaps better not to help at all, because I may not be current enough to know that Kaohsiung has dropped the “h” between the “s” and the “i” at some point in the past two years, so better to just tell him I don’t know rather than make an effort to help…Stellar. 