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From: neal@weitek.UUCP (Neal Bedard)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Worst of the Bay
Message-ID: <255@weitek.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Aug-85 04:05:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: weitek.255
Posted: Fri Aug 16 04:05:46 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 04:49:10 EDT
References: <450@olivee.UUCP> <132@cadsys.UUCP> <805@ptsfa.UUCP>
Organization: Weitek Corporation, Sunnyvale
Lines: 26

In article <805@ptsfa.UUCP>, rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo) writes:
> In article <132@cadsys.UUCP> bbaker@cadsys.UUCP (William Baker) writes:
> >> Well, once again I've stumbled onto another incredibly BAD
> >> 
> >> Its name -   Tai Pan (Inc.)
> >
> >Ironically, a tai-pan is the chinese word for the master of a whorehouse
> >or a public toilet.  It's amazing the things you pick up from
> >reading too many James Clavell novels...
> 
> Not necessarily. Many different Chinese syllables get transliterated
> the same way in English if only for the fact that distinguishing
> tones are not indicated in the transliteration.
> -- 

If you believe James Clavell's *Noble House*, Hong Kong chinese prefer 
the title "loh-pan" to "tai-pan", and the "foreign devil" preference for
"tai-pan" is a small joke to chinese, due to its meaning stated above.

I don't think "loh-pan" and "tai-pan" are the same chinese word
transliterated differently. They sound too dissimilar.

-Neal
-- 
"mynd you, m00se bytes kann be pretti nasti"
UUCP: {ucbvax!dual!turtlevax,ihnp4!resonex,decwrl!amdcad!cae780}!weitek!neal