Posts by linger
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@Lucy: not just in NZ - almost all of the Chinese students I have taught here in Japan take English names for class purposes. In the past few years, such names have included "Candice" (similar in sound to her full Chinese name); "Tina" (adapted from part of the sound of her Chinese name); "Grace" (a translation of part of her Chinese name); and "Terry" (which seems to be a name he saw once and liked).
For these students, this rebranding seems at least in part a deliberate language learning strategy, part of "thinking in English". -
@Ben: nah, I didn't have any input into the original katakanaisation of my name - that happened before I ever set foot in Japan. I wouldn't have minded if there had been some creative (descriptive, meaningful) changes to create a "nice personalisation", but instead it was (and, had to be) merely a distortion of the sounds of a name that - you may have noticed - I'm not really much attached to in the first place.
Hence, when (back on the VUW BBS many years ago) I actually had
a chance to come up with a meaningful name [...] to present yourself [...] to other people
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I chose the username I still appear by here.
If pronounced to rhyme with "singer", it is self-descriptive (I have been working in linguistics departments [cf VUW course code LING] for more than 20 years now);
while, with the more usual pronunciation, it is rather neatly suited to use in online fora: simultaneously a reminder to myself to pause before posting a comment, and an invitation to others to hang out. -
I have an inkan (Japanese name stamp) now, having been forced to get one for some of my university duties. I had resisted it for some years, on the grounds that there is no way to put anything like my real name on one. There is a kanji word [meaning something like 'drizzle'] with a pronunciation close to my family name - but it is not one of the official "name" kanji, so cannot be used. Which leaves only katakana (angular symbols representing sounds equivalent to Japanese syllables), which even if used "correctly" would misrepresent every syllable of my name. In practice, the "official" rendering was assigned by office staff who did not know the pronunciation of my name, adding further distortions. I've been stuck with the error ever since; thus in Japan my "one true signature" is anything but.
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steven: considered what?
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...ignorant voters often cast their ballot directly in opposition to their own interests. I call it "noses all over the floor"...
Or, to put it more briefly: Oh Noses!
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Well, in Bank's case, the electorate has quite a lot of previous experience of him, too.
... You'd think they'd learn from that. -
OMG, that wasn't a typo -- you really are paying $A160/night (which is what, $NZ180?) at a youth hostel, and describing it as "good value"!
Of course you know the equivalent room in Wellington [i.e. backpacking establishment, but offering ensuites; so the closest equivalent would be at something like the Cambridge] would be around $NZ90.
... Does that mean that Wellington has half the cultural value of Sydney? -
National and Labour have traditionally operated under different definitions of "fairness", which always needs to be remembered when we start arguing about what is "fair".
For Labour, "fairness" = "creating equality of opportunity" (which means that the disadvantaged should be given more support; one way of achieving that is through a progressive tax system).
For National, "fairness" = "equality of treatment under law" (which means, amongst other things, that the advantaged should not be more highly taxed).
[I am a little worried that this seems to be being broadened into "equality of treatment across individuals and corporations" - but it's consistent with their general theme.] -
She learned from the scarf incident.
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deprecation wasn't real money because they have to pay it back
<pendant>no, "deprecation" is what *we* should be giving *them*, innit.</pendant>