on epistemology and etymology

saw the following quote in petraeus’s post:

“When confronted with two things that have an appearance of accuracy, most people will choose the one that is more appealing to them.”

and it totally resonated with an observation made 2 days ago. this story began with a casual flip of a ForwardSG booklet that was distributed free with the printed Zaobao. and the casual flip turned up an observation (looks like the casual mode did not disengage the analytical mind):

(click here for image (pwd))

there was a problematic expression. it should have been “取诸社会,用诸社会” (meaning: giving back to society what’s obtained from society).
but “诸” is a word from old Chinese and it’s seldom used and considered more difficult in contemporary Chinese today. however, the second of “诸”‘s multiple meanings in old Chinese can be represented by two simple words of today: “之于”。in other words, 诸 = 之于 (could be interpreted as: from). hence, if “诸” is difficult and not used, a more understandable and accurate expression would be “取之于社会,用之于社会”。but it is lengthy.

so why is “取之社会,用之社会” problematic from an etymology’s perspective? noticed the omission of 于 from the original 之于? none of the 12 meanings of “之” can make sense in this expression. pls let me know if you can interpret otherwise.

what if it were “取于社会,用于社会”? the 3rd meaning of “于” actually makes total sense and can be used to replace “诸” while still retaining its original meaning.

in short, “取之社会,用之社会” is totally meaningless etymologically. but, a quick google actually revealed that pple used and published “in “wrongly” . why? well, not everybody is etymologically-aware; how many of these writers are familiar if not linguists in old Chinese? and in our busy-ness, anything that ‘sounds’ correct goes? afterall, if something sounds ‘weird’, just repeat it 10 times verbally, and it’ll sound “just fine” — a ‘trick’ taught to me by my linguistic professor some 25 yrs ago.

and does something that appear in publications makes it (more) right? this is an epistemic question that was posed to me by my supervisor when i was doing lit review for my doctoral thesis.

to be fair, google also revealed pple pointing out what’s right, for example, here and here. but as per petraeus’s quote at the beginning of this post, pple may decide what’s ‘right’ and/or ‘ok’ to them cos it’s more appealing, for one reason or another.

in summary, “取之社会,用之社会” is problematic etymologically cos “之“ doesnt make any meaning-sense. “取于社会,用于社会” is an acceptable and meaning-accurate if “取诸社会,用诸社会” is archaic and more difficult, or if “取之于社会,用之于社会” is too lengthy an expression.

if you are a (Chinese) language teacher reading this, would you correct the “错误” in your student’s writing?

学成语-源清流清

今日看《琅琊榜》第14集,听到了一句很有意思的话,原来还有成语。#成语有的就是正常的
出处如下:

“故械数者,治之流也,非治之原也。君子者,治之原也。官人守数,君子养原,原清则流清,原浊则流浊。” 《荀子.君道》

君者民之源也,源清则流清,源浊则流浊。《韩诗外传.卷五》

retrieved from [灯语话廉:成语故事]

critical thinking 批判个什么对错来着?

昨天12470课上,我们一起烧了一个下午的脑细胞,间中提到了“对 & 错” vs. “好 & 更好”的出发点和区别,过后我们也略微谈到了“批判性思维”一词。 “批判”一词在《现汉》(第5版)1034页是这样收录的:

(1) 对错误的思想、言论或行为做系统的分析,加以否定: ~虚无主义。
(2) 分析判别,评论好坏: ~地继承文学艺术遗产。

可见汉语对于批判的理解是对错鲜明的,甚至(1)里边就是针对错误出发。 难道我们在培养学生的critical thinking时只是在培养他们的挑毛病、找错误的能力?

有关批判性思维中文翻译的不恰当,可参考宋国明(2011)的这篇博文: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_631b937401013crx.html

英文中的Critical Thinking 呢? “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” (取自CriticalThinking.Org) 。可见英文里的出发点不在找错,而是通过不同层次的思维,尤其是高阶思维的运用来对事物、事件、现象作分析,以得出个人的结论。 要了解 Critical Thinking 的原意,可前往以下网址:

https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766

我们可要把学生“教对了”哦 😛

right wrong photoPhoto by theps.net

word of the year 2016 …

… according to the Oxford dictionary, is post-truth:

“an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.”

and it appears that the phrase post-truth politics has been around for at least a decade, but it’s popularised only recently. although it’s more closely associated with politicians, sometimes, post-truth (politics) is also not too far from us if we think about it. so, ignorance is bliss as always #成语有的就是正常的 #HGXG


(acknowledgement: oxforddictionaries.com)

what world will my child live in

saw this video shared on moe channel in a feed:

(02:33-) “one thing that is going to be very important is to…learn to learn, in which as you are learning the theory, you are also applying it to a set of problems that are very real. The computers will know the fact, and the computers will be much better at executing the procedures than you will ever be.”

translating it to the two aspects of language learning (cultural content & skills):

“one thing that is going to be very important is to…learn to learn, in which as you are learning the language skills, you are also applying it to a context that is very real. The computers will know the language, and the computers will be much better at executing the skills than you will ever be.”

“one thing that is going to be very important is to…learn to learn, in which as you are learning the cultural contents, you are connecting them to a context that is very real. The computers will know the fact, and the computers will be much better at recalling the contents than you will ever be.”

what are we (both school/teachers, and parents) teaching today that is preparing our children for the world they are living in tmr? #food4thought