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):
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?
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