Timeline for So... what the heck was petunse / pih-tun-tsze / pai-tun-tsze / petuntse / patootie?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
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Jul 1 at 8:00 | comment | added | lly | Anyway, at least the last quote was on topic and, yeah, that does seem to be the right form according to Needham & co. If you wanted to edit your answer to remove the salt bits and focus on that, I'll change my vote for one. | |
Jul 1 at 8:00 | comment | added | lly | Fwiw, Salt: A World History is a fun book + salt was especially vital in China because of its importance in taxation and funding various major cities (particularly Yangzhou). Similarly, the Jesuits were helpful in modernizing China (Xu Guangqi translated Euclid primarily for the obvious benefit it provided to Chinese cannon) before they got kneecapped by jealous Franciscans and Dominicans. Absolutely none of that has anything whatsoever to do with Jingdezhen or its porcelain, however. | |
Jun 24 at 13:30 | comment | added | Pedroski | There are many salt trails across the Sahara desert, which is only slightly smaller than China. Brave and incredibly tough people still transport conical shaped salt "pillars" across the desert on camels to remote oases guided only by their instincts. A much harsher place than China! The word salary derives from salt: part of the pay of Roman legionnaires was salt. You should not denigrate salt! I did find this as an explanation for Petuntse: 白墩子(一种精炼的白瓷土,做成墩状以便运输);做成墩状: pillars of 白瓷土 So what do they need the 高嶺土 for? Jesuits never did anything except cause trouble! | |
Jun 24 at 12:21 | comment | added | lly | Again, still has nothing to do with salt. The point is the Baike Baidu article is about something entirely different and the term is extremely uncommon in modern Chinese. The guys who replaced Needham actually claim it used to be extremely common but I have my doubts. | |
Jun 23 at 18:08 | comment | added | Pedroski | Napoleonic type meets Chinese man selling 白墩子的湖盐. Napoleonic type: Comment appelle-t-on ce genre de sel ? 法国人: 这种盐叫什么名字? 中国人: 这种盐叫白墩子的湖盐. 法国人: Comment? p dune se de 'u yen?? Nous l’appellerons p dune se, c'est bon! Vive La France! | |
Jun 23 at 16:43 | comment | added | lly | And, as far as where the Chinese store the words they save, eh, they just consider it civilized to aim for terse eloquence. If that's really so uncomfortable, you probably wanna stay well clear of literary Chinese. The Chinese translations are always the lightest at the UN tables. Literary Chinese would fit on postcards... & sometimes did when kids were aiming to cheat on the provincial exams by cramming all of Confucius onto the inside of a shirt. There's a museum at Jiading's Confucian Temple that has some examples. | |
Jun 23 at 16:36 | comment | added | lly | That & there's no landlocked Sussex to distinguish it from. Point was the second word was part of the name and translating South on its own would be bizarre and unhelpful. -ton would correspond with 邑, 州, 郡, 府, 市, 縣, 鎮, &c. at different times. Precisely my point: you're treating common names and top-line dictionary results as accurate summations of the full meanings of the full names... which, no, doesn't work. Really far in the weeds now, but Market-by-the-Sea is precisely what Shanghai was, although it got the name when it was a 鎮 (which covers counties and their seats &c.). | |
Jun 23 at 15:49 | comment | added | Pedroski | Sussex: Suþ Seaxe "(land of the) South Saxons" Never heard of Sussex upon Sea, presumably because it is a county, but I do know Kingston upon Thames. The suffix -ton would correspond with 镇. If you call 上海 上海市, you still have no name, neither poetic nor prosaic, just on Sea market! Where do the Chinese store all these words they save? Where is the Word Bank? | |
Jun 23 at 12:23 | comment | added | lly | Oh, someone upvoted the initial comment so I shouldn't just replace it. I can't edit it now either, but, in fairness, I should say that the "definitely" above really should've been "almost certainly" instead. It's pooossible there is a source out there making the connection. | |
Jun 23 at 11:52 | comment | added | lly | Thanks for the reply but, yep, you should add sources. Nope, the nitrate-laden salt in the wrong region of the country with no porcelain production definitely has nothing to do with millennia of constant porcelain production. Beyond that, it's also both unusual for Chinese names to be as prosaic as Shanghai is (they're generally poetic once things grow beyond village level) and kinda untrue that Shanghai is just On-the-Sea. It's always been 上海縣, 上海市, etc. with the level carrying some of the meaning the same way English says Kingston, Clacton, Sussex, &c. and not just King's, Clac, Sus, &c. | |
Jun 23 at 9:15 | history | answered | Pedroski | CC BY-SA 4.0 |