Bing Means Disease In Chinese(brandinfection.com)
brandinfection.com
Bing Means Disease In Chinese
http://www.brandinfection.com/2009/05/29/bing-means-disease-in-chinese/
11 comments
A lot of people don't realize that Chinese is dependent upon the intonation of the word spoken for meaning. Standard Mandarin has four separate tones. When it comes to bing, the fourth tone can mean aliment or disease, but the others mean several vastly different concepts or ideas.
So what? In English, a yahoo is "a brute, a crude person, often lacking in intelligence, and uninterested in culture", and a million jokes were made about the Wii on launch. I doubt it's impacted their popularity at all.
The author is mistaken, disease is bing with the fourth tone. I'm sure MS meant bing with first tone :)
As a Chinese, Bing.com accures to me as disease when I first saw it.
I like the recursive acronym 'Bing Is Not Google' more :-)
I like the recursive acronym 'Bing Is Not Google' more :-)
I wonder if that little accent-like looking thing on the ì indicates the right tone?
In fact it does. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Mandarin#Tones
So this ì is Pinyin diacritic?
Too bad that the accents are used in different ways in the different diacritics, it seems.
Too bad that the accents are used in different ways in the different diacritics, it seems.
not really. there's a lot of chinese characters pronounced "bing", especially since the tone is unspecified. look at e.g. http://zhongwen.com/s/v19.htm -- the first three rows are all "bing" characters.
Upvoted as the best link here to the wide variety of Chinese morphemes that are all spelled "bing" in Hanyu pinyin.
No, the Microsoft logo for the new web service doesn't look like a standard tone mark at all.
No, the Microsoft logo for the new web service doesn't look like a standard tone mark at all.
couldn't it be mistaken for the negative meaning?
If it's Microsoft, is there any question which tone to pick? They are, after all, the masters of infection through embrace and extend. (Which could also describe the strategy of the newly hatched Alien movie nymphs.)
It also means pancake and cold, make of that what you will
edit: post dictionary lookup, 冰 (bing) is cold as in ice cold or ice itself.
there are a lot of other meanings too: military, merge, third, bright - all depend on intonation of bing
edit: post dictionary lookup, 冰 (bing) is cold as in ice cold or ice itself.
there are a lot of other meanings too: military, merge, third, bright - all depend on intonation of bing
Are you referring to Tzong Yo Bing (sp?) which mean onion oil pancake. One of my favorites, we often make these with the left over jaotze dough.
The tones have always been hard for me, my favorite is the words for buy and sell. Same word different tones. I wouldn't do well as a stock trader in China :)
The tones have always been hard for me, my favorite is the words for buy and sell. Same word different tones. I wouldn't do well as a stock trader in China :)
You are making my mouth water here. I been way too long since I had this.
cold, diseased pancake?
Hm... cold is not really positive, pancake neutral?
Still not as bad as Chevy Nova. They should have called Vista Nova... now that would have filed neatly in the truth in advertising section.
Kind of the same thing. People worried that "Nova" would sound like 'no va' in spanish, which meant "no go". In reality they are pronounced differently and it was no big deal.
Kind of the same thing. People worried that "Nova" would sound like 'no va' in spanish, which meant "no go". In reality they are pronounced differently and it was no big deal.
The anecdote about the Chevy Nova sounds like a fabrication trying to explain a failure.
The people in México (where the Chevy Nova failed) don't associate the word Nova with No Go. If you want a negative association, we used to have a gasoline brand called Nova. It was formulated with lead and was discontinued for more ecological formulas.
I heard that anecdote in a linguistics class back in college. The same professor shared another:
Back when the advertising slogan for Coca-Cola was "Coke adds life," an unfortunate Chinese translation came through as "Coke brings your ancestors back from the grave". And, of course, they take their ancestors pretty seriously, adding to the hilarity.
Back when the advertising slogan for Coca-Cola was "Coke adds life," an unfortunate Chinese translation came through as "Coke brings your ancestors back from the grave". And, of course, they take their ancestors pretty seriously, adding to the hilarity.
The "brings your ancestors back from the grave" claim is unsubstantiated, and is about Pepsi anyway.
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/ancestor.asp
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/ancestor.asp
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that a professor related something apocryphal for the sake of illustration.
:-)
I also heard said anecdote, along with the fact that it didn't actually effect Chevy Nova sales; it sold admirably.
Bing is going to spread like an epidemic :-)
OK, so which tone most accurately translates the English pronunciation of "bing"?
Hard to say, since English isn't a tonal language. It would depend on how you said it.
Have you seen Microsoft Bing? - Second tone (rising) I don't care for Microsoft Bing. - Fourth tone (falling) Microsoft goes BING! - First tone (Kinda like singing)
I can't think of a way to make it do the third tone, which is kind of like the long falling then rising sound you make when somebody say "Yeah.....", as in "Yeah..... but it's still Microsoft."
Have you seen Microsoft Bing? - Second tone (rising) I don't care for Microsoft Bing. - Fourth tone (falling) Microsoft goes BING! - First tone (Kinda like singing)
I can't think of a way to make it do the third tone, which is kind of like the long falling then rising sound you make when somebody say "Yeah.....", as in "Yeah..... but it's still Microsoft."
Thanks. For some reason, I think I know exactly what you mean re how to pronounce each tone.
I usually say "bing" to rhyme with "ping" as in "ping news.ycombinator.com".
I usually say "bing" to rhyme with "ping" as in "ping news.ycombinator.com".
literally it means
It's more funny if there's domain like you.bing.com then it totally means "has disease"
Officially Bing was translated as 必应, which derives from 有求必应(when there's a request there must be anwser)
必 means 'must' 应 means 'response'
and PinYin domain for 必应 BiYing.com is registered by MSFT already
but BiYing.cn is registered by someone else: