MCLC: creative "Lin-guistics"

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Chan, Marjorie <chan.9 at osu.edu>
Subject: creative "Lin-guistics"
***********************************************************

Source: China Post (2/22/12):
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2012/02/22/332405
/Creative-Linguistics.htm

Creative 'Linguistics' behind the latest NBA phenomenon
By Alan Fong

Lin is a common surname in the Chinese-speaking world. According to a
government count in 2005, it is the second most common surname in Taiwan
after Chen. It is in the U.S., however, that Lin becomes the most popular.

Of course we are talking about Jeremy Lin, the Taiwanese-American NBA
former benchwarmer who rocketed to global stardom in less than a month.
The Harvard-graduate New York Knicks point guard had the world media
performing some rarely seen linguistic gymnastics (at least aside from
tongue-in-cheek tabloid headlines): first it was “Linsanity,” then there
are “Lincredible,” “Linvincible,” “Linspiration” and pretty much the
addition of “L” to any word with a positive meaning that begins with
“in-.” On Feb. 14, the New York Post made its contribution: “Happy
VaLINtine's Day.” Jeremy Lin also added an entry of his own by pointing
out that he likes the “Super Lintendo” — a pun on the video game console
by Nintendo.

Back in Taiwan, the media are also having a good time pulling off
wordsmith stunts of their own, mostly by working on Lin's Chinese name Lin
Shu-hao (林書豪).

To begin with, Lin's given name is an apt description of Lin's current
show of strength. With “shu” meaning books or writing and “hao” leader or
heroic person in Chinese, the name fits Lin's characteristics as a leader
in the Knicks' recent winning form with an Ivy League education.

The Taiwanese puns start with a subtle translation of “Linsanity” by using
the close homonym of Lin (林, wood): the English pun becomes “Lin Lai Feng”
(林來瘋), with Lin substituting the close sounding “Ren” (人, people) from
the 
Taiwanese idiom “人來瘋” (the three characters literally mean people, come
and insane, respectively). The turn of phase originally refers to people
who become excited or showy in front of others. Here it pretty much means
what Linsanity means.

For local media, however, the character “hao” is a better source for puns
because it happens to be the homonym of the Chinese word for “good” or
“very” (好) in Mandarin. The Taiwanese press gave the world “Hao Xiao Zi” (豪
小子, the great kid), “Hao Shen” (豪神, very amazing), “Hao Wei” (豪威, very
mighty), and “Hao Bang Yang” (豪榜樣, good example). The track is actually
quite straight forward, just add the term good or very (both Hao in
Chinese) to any praise that fits the moment.

If there is an award for best pun, it should go to “Ling Shu Hao” (零輸豪),
a 
term comprising ingenious puns on the first two characters in Lin's
Chinese name: the surname becomes “Ling,” meaning zero and “Shu” has it
meanings transferred from its original books (書) to lose (輸). Combined it
refers to Lin as the “zero lose Hao,” which was a fitting description of
his leading of the Knicks to seven straight wins a few days earlier.