In Chinese (I mean like most dialects), North Pole is just 北极 (“Northern Extreme”), South Pole is 南极 (“Southern Extreme”). Arctic is just 北极 with the extra character 地区 meaning area (“Northern Extreme Area”), Antartica is 南极洲 (“Southern Extreme Continent”).
There’s no weird etymology involving bears lol
Maybe we should let someone from China or Taiwan contact the aliens?
Someone once told me that the Chinese word for penguin translated to “business goose” and I cannot tell you how crestfallen I was when I looked it up and found out it wasn’t true.
Penguins are called 企鵝/企鹅 (qì’é, [tɕʰi˥˩ ɤ˧˥]) in Chinese. It would be better literally translated as standing goose. It just so happens to share the same character 企 with the word for business. Most people don’t know that 企 means standing anymore though.
I mean “企” character by itself isn’t really a word, but maybe the person thought of 企业 (Enterprise/Bussiness), which I would say technically that person isn’t like lying, just a misunderstanding of language.
But then again, I’ve only attended primary school grade-levels in China, so I’m no word expert either.
She sorta was the cult leader, iirc the aliens didn’t understand humans and trusted her organisation to decide how to get things done (at least until they finally realise how humans actually work and decide to just shut it all down), so the cult was probably her idea
In Chinese (I mean like most dialects), North Pole is just 北极 (“Northern Extreme”), South Pole is 南极 (“Southern Extreme”). Arctic is just 北极 with the extra character 地区 meaning area (“Northern Extreme Area”), Antartica is 南极洲 (“Southern Extreme Continent”).
There’s no weird etymology involving bears lol
Maybe we should let someone from China or Taiwan contact the aliens?
Someone once told me that the Chinese word for penguin translated to “business goose” and I cannot tell you how crestfallen I was when I looked it up and found out it wasn’t true.
Penguins are called 企鵝/企鹅 (qì’é, [tɕʰi˥˩ ɤ˧˥]) in Chinese. It would be better literally translated as standing goose. It just so happens to share the same character 企 with the word for business. Most people don’t know that 企 means standing anymore though.
I mean “企” character by itself isn’t really a word, but maybe the person thought of 企业 (Enterprise/Bussiness), which I would say technically that person isn’t like lying, just a misunderstanding of language.
But then again, I’ve only attended primary school grade-levels in China, so I’m no word expert either.
Read Three Body Problem if you wanna know how that goes
Tbf she was an alien-worshipping cultist (cult wasn’t technically founded at the time, but she had the mindset of a cultist)
She sorta was the cult leader, iirc the aliens didn’t understand humans and trusted her organisation to decide how to get things done (at least until they finally realise how humans actually work and decide to just shut it all down), so the cult was probably her idea
Heh, I understood this obscure sci-fi joke!
I wouldn’t call three body obscure
You’d be surprised. I’ve got some friends who read all the time, including (but not exclusively) sci-fi, and they had never heard of it
FTFY
That’s what they said
They removed Taiwan…
We should let Taiwan or western Taiwan contact the aliens first.
Occupied mainland Taiwan
Taiwan’s official name, that their government calls itself, is “the republic of china”, “china” covers both places just fine.