Date:    Tue, 21 Apr 1998 13:28:08 -0700
<br>From:    "A. Vine" <avine[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ENG.SUN.COM>
<br>Subject: Re: un- & -ate
<br>
<br>Donald M. L
<br>======================================================================
<br>
<br>From: Automatic digest processor (4/21/98)
<br>To: Recipients of ADS-L digests
<br>
<br>         ADS-L Digest - 19 Apr 1998 to 20 Apr 1998             98-04-21 00:03:08
<br>There is one message totalling 38 lines in this issue.
<br>
<br>Topics of the day:
<br>
<br>  1. Chinglish
<br>
<br>----------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>
<br>Date:    Mon, 20 Apr 1998 17:20:37 -0500
<br>From:    Mark Mandel <Mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DRAGONSYS.COM>
<br>Subject: Re: Chinglish
<br>
<br>Yongwei Gao <951208[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FUDAN.EDU.CN> writes:
<br> >>>>>
<br>
<br>1) Could anybody find anything unidiomatic with "Despite the Asian financial
<br> crisis, Shanghai plans to introduce US$4
<br>billion in contracted foreign investment this year, according to the Shanghai
<br> Foreign
<br>Investment Working Meeting held on April 11", a sentence taken from a local
<br> English newspaper?
<br> <<<<<
<br>
<br>IMHO, it's clumsy and rambling, but no more so than what I'd expect in any
<br> American newspaper's financial section
<br>trying to get everything into the lead sentence. The uses of "introduce" and
<br> "contracted" look a *little* strange to me, but
<br>I'm not familiar enough with American (or British) financialspeak to know if
<br> that's just because I don't know those
<br>jargons.
<br>
<br>Oops, hey there. That sentence was so long I fell asleep before the end. I would
<br> not say or accept "according to the ...
<br>Meeting". Meetings don't say things. "According to an announcement issued by the
<br> ... Meeting" would be OK by my
<br>lights. One might argue that "Meeting" actually refers to the group of people
<br> who met or the organization comprising them
<br>or their groups, but that claim would be belied by the modifier "held on April
<br> 11", which can apply only to a "meeting" as
<br>an event.
<br> >>>>>
<br>
<br>2) Has "on the cusp of" (e.g. on the cusp of the millennium) become a set
<br> phrase?
<br> <<<<<
<br>
<br>Yeah, dammit. This one seems to be used synonymously with "verge" or
<br> "threshold", whereas a cusp belongs between
<br>two things. You could argue that this is the cusp between two millennia, but I
<br> still don't like it. So here's my verdict: it's
<br>idiomatic, but it shouldn't be. <grump, grump>
<br>
<br>       Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com
<br>    Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 796-0267
<br> 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/
<br>          Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/
<br>