Tag: Chinese

Redefining Nonsense in English and Chinese (new study)

Martin Gardiner

“Definitions of nonsense vary widely and often pay little attention to cultural context or the phenomenology of reading.” – explains Professor Alan Levinovitz of James Madison University, US in a Sept. 2017 article for the journal Comparative Literature. “After surveying the problems with these definitions, the article then redefines nonsense experientially, that is, as the […]

The ‘Usefulness of Uselessness’ and a vice versa update

Martin Gardiner

It was somewhere around the 4th century BC that Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou raised the idea of ‘The Usefulness of Uselessness’. Master Zhuang pointed out that objects (or information) which appear at first sight to be quite useless, can, on further investigation (and/or at a later date, and/or at another place) sometimes turn out to […]

A confusing study: Chinese Sports Reports

Marc Abrahams

Non-specialists may find the following study to be delightfully confusing. Here’s the citation, and a snippet from the whole thing. (Click on the image to see an enlargement of it. Click on the title link to obtain a copy of the entire article.): “A Study of Chinese-English Code-switching in Chinese Sports News Reports,” Chun-xuan Shen, […]

Irrational Torque Technique of Hammer Throwers

Marc Abrahams

This study explains that the technique of certain hammer throwers is irrational. Below the citation, you can see a video about the comparatively rational techniques of Soviet hammer throwers. “Kinematical Research on the Whole Pace and the Features of the Kip and Knee of the Throwing Technique of Chinese Elite Female Hammer Throwers,” Zhang Jinyi, […]