China bans wordplay in attempt at pun control

[Palmares]

If forcing you to call each other "comrade" wasn't enough, now there's this:


China bans wordplay in attempt at pun control

Officials say casual alteration of idioms risks nothing less than ‘cultural and linguistic chaos’, despite their common usage



http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/11/28/1417177462338/China-puns-tory-004.jpg
China’s print and broadcast watchdog says puns may mislead the public – especially children. Photograph: Chen Li/ Chen Li/Xinhua Press/Corbis Tania Branigan (http://www.theguardian.com/profile/taniabranigan) in Beijing
Friday 28 November 2014 23.26 AEST


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From online discussions to adverts, Chinese culture is full of puns. But the country’s print and broadcast watchdog has ruled that there is nothing funny about them.
It has banned wordplay on the grounds that it breaches the law on standard spoken and written Chinese, makes promoting cultural heritage harder and may mislead the public – especially children.
The casual alteration of idioms risks nothing less than “cultural and linguistic chaos”, it warns.
Chinese is perfectly suited to puns because it has so many homophones. Popular sayings and even customs, as well as jokes, rely on wordplay.
But the order from the State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television says: “Radio and television authorities at all levels must tighten up their regulations and crack down on the irregular and inaccurate use of the Chinese language, especially the misuse of idioms.”
Programmes and adverts should strictly comply with the standard spelling and use of characters, words, phrases and idioms – and avoid changing the characters, phrasing and meanings, the order said.
“Idioms are one of the great features of the Chinese language and contain profound cultural heritage and historical resources and great aesthetic, ideological and moral values,” it added.
“That’s the most ridiculous part of this: [wordplay] is so much part and parcel of Chinese heritage,” said David Moser, academic director for CET Chinese studies at Beijing Capital Normal University.
When couples marry, people will give them dates and peanuts – a reference to the wish Zaosheng guizi or “May you soon give birth to a son”. The word for dates is also zao and peanuts are huasheng.
The notice cites complaints from viewers, but the examples it gives appear utterly innocuous. In a tourism promotion campaign, tweaking the characters used in the phrase jin shan jin mei – perfection – has turned it into a slogan translated as “Shanxi, a land of splendours”. In another case, replacing a single character in ke bu rong huan has turned “brook no delay” into “coughing must not linger” for a medicine advert.
“It could just be a small group of people, or even one person, who are conservative, humourless, priggish and arbitrarily purist, so that everyone has to fall in line,” said Moser.
“But I wonder if this is not a preemptive move, an excuse to crack down for supposed ‘linguistic purity reasons’ on the cute language people use to crack jokes about the leadership or policies. It sounds too convenient.”
Internet users have been particularly inventive in finding alternative ways to discuss subjects or people whose names have been blocked by censors.
Moves to block such creativity have a long history too. Moser said Yuan Shikai, president of the Republic of China (http://www.theguardian.com/world/china) from 1912 to 1915, reportedly wanted to rename the Lantern Festival, Yuan Xiao Jie, because it sounded like “cancel Yuan day”.
• Additional research by Luna Lin



http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/28/china-media-watchdog-bans-wordplay-puns

[Palmares]

MUeOIud0q-g

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Now it's official: The deformed workers state has lost it's sense of humour on top of everything else. That bitter old curmudgeon of a party state.

[Red Son]

Ticking all the boxes of stereotypes of a 'Communist' state - humourless, brutal and unyeilding. Helps continue the tarnishing of the very idea of communism, and the word itself, in the minds of the potential revolutionary class. But then again, I suppose it's the 'job' of those who know better what communism is / could be to educate and inform so people don't continue to see this, the DPRK and others as examples of socialism / communism.
Tried to think of a pun to sign off on, but I can't so...ta ta for Mao...:unsure:

[Palmares]

We can't all be punnunists! :hammersickle::marx::engles::castro::che::trotski: :w00t:

[Loony Le Fist]

...
From online discussions to adverts, Chinese culture is full of puns. But the country’s print and broadcast watchdog has ruled that there is nothing funny about them.
It has banned wordplay on the grounds that it breaches the law on standard spoken and written Chinese, makes promoting cultural heritage harder and may mislead the public – especially children.
...


Always to protect the children. Much like Athenian politicians tried to protect the children from the corruption of Socrates with hemlock.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

To be honest Socrates was kind of a conservative with enough ties to the Thirty to be suspicious to any democrat. But that's neither here nor there. The intention here is obvious - Chinese message boards are full of posts about crabs carrying three watches and whatnot, and the authorities can't really do anything about it, particularly not in the wake of a major downgrade of the police forces, but they can fight against wordplay (which Chinese is particularly suited to).

I'm also a bit leery of Anglo-European newspapers basically reporting this as "ha ha stupid Chinese ban fun".

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Of course the liberal press reports this as a case of "banning fun for funs sake" or whatever. They want to remind us we live in a free society while China is a police state with lots of arbitrary bans. There are many like it in the world but this one is ours (to trade with). Hence; no need to get into the political reality behind the ban, just enjoy it as the liberal joke of the week.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This is terry ball. ;)

[Sixiang]

This measure shows that the CCP is aware of the cleverness of Chinese people in using puns to criticize the government, however, I highly doubt that it will be effectively implemented.

For example, the Chinese word for "harmony" is "hexie." In 2005, the Hu Jintao's administration promoted the goal of creating a "Harmonious Society," which is really just doublespeak for suppressing any notions of class conflict. On the internet, people started saying that they had been "harmonized" to indicate that their posts had been censored by the government. When that phrase was banned, Chinese people started saying that they've been "river crab-ed" instead because "river crab" in Chinese is also pronounced "hexie." I imagine that if the ban the use of river crab, people will just come up with something else.

This measure is really impossible to successfully implement. Even if they don't type it, people can and do just say such puns all the time.

[consuming negativity]

i could have sworn i already made a 35th of may reference itt but apparently not

all shit like this does is make them come across as assholes, which they are

[Mao Zedong]

Ignorant liberals. So what they introduce new rules? Who cares? America just loves to say bad things about China.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Ignorant liberals. So what they introduce new rules? Who cares? America just loves to say bad things about China.

Um, what if they are BAD rules?

Also, I'm more worried about the liberal economics of those running Beijing than the "liberal" politics of those criticizing the censorship state.