supermarket, cosmopolitan, vernacular, vernacular writing

Bai hua (vernacular language) movement

In order to understand Xu’s achievement, it is necessary to know what classical Chinese poetry is like, and also to know something about the ‘bai hua’ (vernacular writing) movement that he was part of.

Traditional Chinese poems can take various forms but the forms have strict rules, like Shakespearean sonnets. The number of characters (words) in each line is predetermined. Chinese is a tonal language, and the tones of the individual words create the metre which must be strictly followed. Rhyme is essential. There is a set vocabulary rich with allusions, which only those educated within this tradition understand. Furthermore, the language used to write this verse is not modern spoken Chinese, but a literary form that is very different, perhaps as different as French is from Latin.

Some of the shelves visible on the picture behind the two desks contain books on subjects I still work on: nationalism, the history of banditry. Most of them, however, are filled with the foreign editions of my books. Their numbers amaze and please me and they still keep coming as new titles are translated and some fresh vernacular markets - Hindi, Vietnamese - open up. As I can't read most of them, they serve no purpose other than as a bibliographic record and, in moments of discouragement, as a reminder that an old cosmopolitan has not entirely failed in 50 years of trying to communicate history to the world's readers. And as an encouragement to go on while I still can.
Eric Hobsbawm

an old cosmopolitan

supermarket

Saturday, August 4, 2007

In much of the developed world, though, since the introduction of home refrigeration, consumers opt for the convenience of less frequent shopping at the one-stop supermarket.

On this date in 1930, Michael J. Cullen opened the first supermarket in the US, the King Cullen Grocery Company, in Queens, NY. It took another three years for the term "supermarket" to make it into the vernacular.

台灣的"超商"可能是統一公司在1970年代末的翻譯.....

Daiichi Ohno, 大野耐一 等1950s到美國體驗出 Toyota Production System...

Quote

"I never make a trip to the United States without visiting a supermarket. To me they are more fascinating than any fashion salon." — Wallis, Duchess of Windsor

ver・nac・u・lar

━━ n. （the ～） 自国語; 地方語, お国ことば; （職業上の）専門語; （動植物の）俗名.
━━ a. （言語が）自国の; 方言の; （建築など）その地方特有の.

cos・mo・pol・i・tan

━━ a., n. 国際的な, 全世界の; （人・見解・信念などが）一国家［民族］の立場にとらわれない, 世界主義的な（人）, 国際人; 【生物】全世界に分布する; （C-） 『コスモポリタン』 ((米国の女性月刊誌)).
cos・mo・pol・i・tan・ism　━━ n. 世界主義.