# Annoying language conceits in "Paper Mage" and elsewhere **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 12, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236 "2008-02-12T01:45:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/1 "2008-02-12T01:45:09Z")
I gotta share this. I picked up a book from the library, [Paper Mage](http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Mage-Leah-R-Cutter/dp/0451459172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202780312&sr=8-1), based on a recommendation from an editor I really like and who’s rarely steered me wrong. It’s a fantasy novel set in China during the Tang dynasty, and it begins at least by following the life of a girl who becomes, literally, an origami wizard. Interesting idea with potential. But my god, the way the author deals with language is hideous. An example: > [@Paper Mage](#): > > “Might I have the honor of knowing your name?” he asked, very formally. > > “My family name is Fu, my formal name is Xi Wen, but everyone calls me Xiao Yen.” > “‘ **Xiao** ’ as in little?” the man asked. > > “Yes,” Xiao Yen said. And ‘ **Yen** ’ is the bird, the little brown one, that Wang Tie-Tie tells me stories about, that would die before it stole food." > > “A sparrow,” the man said. > > “Correct,” Xiao Yen replied. To understand how annoying this is, keep in mind that both characters are speaking Chinese, and all the English in the passage has been translated by the author from Chinese, in theory. Here’s what the conversation would have sounded like to these two native Chinese speakers: > [@Paper Mage](#): > > “Might I have the honor of knowing your name?” he asked, very formally. > > “My family name is Fu, my formal name is Xi Wen, but everyone calls me Little Sparrow.” > > “‘ **Little** ’ as in little?” the man asked. > > “Yes,” Little Sparrow said. And ‘ **Sparrow** ’ is the bird, the little brown one, that Wang Tie-Tie tells me stories about, that would die before it stole food." > > “A sparrow,” the man said. > > “Correct,” Little Sparrow replied. Gah! I can put up with a lot of stupid language conceits. Hell, I can even accept the universal translator from Star Trek. But this business of first off the author randomly not translating certain words, and then having characters translate the words **for other native speakers** , is the stupidest language conceit in a book that I’ve ever seen. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/2 "2008-02-12T05:16:28Z")
Harry Turtledove liked to do something similar in the World War series. I don’t have my books available for an actual example, but it would be something like > [@](#): > > “_Deutschland_ – Germany – thanks you for your service,” Jaeger said. I read that series at a fairly young age, and it took me a _long_ time before I realized the character wasn’t actually repeating himself, but that it was an authorial notation for the reader’s benefit. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/3 "2008-02-12T06:02:22Z")
Umm…actually the bit makes perfect sense. It’s like if I said my name is “Dam”, and then specified “Like the thing you put across a river”, that makes sense, no? In Japanese, if I was to say that my name was “Shoki”, there could be any number of Chinese characters (kanji) that are pronounced “sho” and any number that are pronounced “ki”. Sho: 諸 書 所 初 Ki: 気 着 機 木 期 来 記 And that’s just a sample. There’s still more characters that all have a different meaning, but are each pronounced the same. Without being more descriptive, people wouldn’t have any idea which characters you had used in your name. (Note that Shoki isn’t a Japanese name, I just chose it because both of those sylables have lots of characters they could be.) ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/4 "2008-02-12T06:02:26Z")
I don’t know which I find more annoying in that passage, the redundant translating, or that a sentence with a very formal structure (in English) is described as being spoken “very formally.” Either way, I think it would be the last passage I would read. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/5 "2008-02-12T07:26:04Z")
If you were to observe two Chinese people conversing, you’ll often see them tracing characters on their hands, to clarify exactly what word they mean. If my sources are correct, xiăo (small) could also mean - with a different character - dawn or clear. “Yen” does not appear to be the correct romanization for sparrow, which should be què, but that could also mean cowardly, retreat, magpie, real/true, or bridge. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/6 "2008-02-12T08:00:17Z")
The Faded Sun. Supposedly a great SF book. :rolleyes: :dubious: Requires you to know, entirely from context, some score + of alien words by page 2. Not a glossary in sight. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/7 "2008-02-12T11:44:21Z")
[QUOTE=Alan Smithee] I don’t know which I find more annoying in that passage, the redundant translating, or that a sentence with a very formal structure (in English) is described as being spoken “very formally.” Either way, I think it would be the last passage I would read. [/QUOTE] It was close to the last passage; I put the book down soon afterward. And it doesn’t really make sense to me. Even if the words needed clarification, the way it’s done is very clumsy, IMO, especially the last three exchanges. The book is full of this sort of thing: this was just the most egregious example by the second chapter. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/8 "2008-02-12T11:49:41Z")
Clumsy or not, that’s pretty well what you do when speaking Japanese, and I presume Chinese, unless you have a pad of paper and a pencil handy. Not to say that it wasn’t the author trying to show off, but it could perfectly well be an attempt at realism or showing how different other languages are (if it’s targetted for a younger audience.) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/9 "2008-02-12T13:50:14Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] The Faded Sun. Supposedly a great SF book. :rolleyes: :dubious: Requires you to know, entirely from context, some score + of alien words by page 2. Not a glossary in sight. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] I haven’t read that, and haven’t really liked Cherryh’s work, but Anthony Burgess did the same thing in **A Clockwork Orange** and it worked brilliantly. There was no glossary (originally – US editions added one, but it was really redundant), yet the meaning of Alex’s words were perfectly clear in context. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/10 "2008-02-12T15:18:54Z")
[QUOTE=Terminus Est] If you were to observe two Chinese people conversing, you’ll often see them tracing characters on their hands, to clarify exactly what word they mean. [/QUOTE] The problem with this is that there’s almost no narrative describing actions in the passage **LHoD** provided, only dialogue. Going from what’s in the book, it’s entirely reasonable to read “xiao as in little” as if the guy had said “xiao (as in) xiao” (I don’t know what the entire Chinese construction would be) with no difference in inflection between the two words. It’s not at all like saying “dam as in the thing you put across a river” but rather “dam as in dam.” Now, it’s possible the word that was used in Chinese that got ‘translated’ as little is different from xiao, and a synonym was used. In English, it might be something like “little as in small.” Again, this is conveyed very poorly, because switching between Chinese and English as the author does hides those nuances. If the characters are using ideograms, synonyms, or definitions to clarify meaning, the author is doing a terrible job of conveying this. ---
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/11 "2008-02-12T16:02:17Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] I haven’t read that, and haven’t really liked Cherryh’s work, but Anthony Burgess did the same thing in **A Clockwork Orange** and it worked brilliantly. There was no glossary (originally – US editions added one, but it was really redundant), yet the meaning of Alex’s words were perfectly clear in context. [/QUOTE] Actually, it’s not an entirely uncommon practice in fantasy/SF novels who have non-human protagonists or are set in alien worlds. **Watership Down** also created its own language and left it up to the reader to pick up and remember the various terms used by the animal protagonists, as did an early work by Tad Williams called **Tailchaser’s Song**. I don’t recall either having a glossary for reference, but the language could easily be figured out based on both context and explanations within the narrative. I guess some people would be annoyed by this practice, but when done properly I feel as if I’m more immersed into the characters’ world than I would have been if I constantly needed to flip back and forth to a glossary. (I also refuse to read with a dictionary on hand for the same reasons… it’s the literary equivalent to a commercial break) ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/12 "2008-02-12T16:03:07Z")
Well, that’s basically what the author did. Xiăo means small, while shăo (pronounced differently) means little. Seems more reasonable to me than a tedious description of tracing characters or whatnot. Imagine if the author had said: > [@](#): > > Her finger traced a vertical line, then on the left side of that a diagonal line from right to left, then a corresponding line on the other side from left to right. > > “Oh, I see,” the man said. Which would be a description of one of the simpler [Chinese characters](http://lost-theory.org/ocrat/chargif/char/d0a1.html). Quite accurate but leaves the reader none the wiser. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/13 "2008-02-12T16:32:13Z")
Well, no, it doesn’t have to be that detailed. > [@](#): > > “Xiao as in…” He sketches the word for ‘little’ in midair with a finger. Or something. > [@Terminus Est](#): > > Well, that’s basically what the author did. Xiăo means small, while shăo (pronounced differently) means little. But the author didn’t really do that. By switching from Chinese to English, that nuance of synonyms is lost and it’s not clear that’s what the character is saying. You’d have to have a stronger knowledge of Chinese than most people to be able to dig a level deeper and come up with that explanation, which is unsupported by the text as provided. On further thought, I can see this all making sense if the characters are speaking in a non-Mandarin dialect, and the man is confirming the Mandarin words with the equivalent in the dialect that’s being translated to English. But if that distinction isn’t made clear in the text, it’s still somewhat puzzling. May not be Mandarin, since I can’t verify that yen = sparrow in it. But we’ll go with that for now. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/14 "2008-02-12T18:55:04Z")
Jonathan Safran Foer’s _Everything is Illuminated_ has one of its protagonists, a Ukrainian, speak in what Foer, I suppose, believes to be comically bad English, using words that are almost, but not quite, the ones he wants used. The problem? I don’t believe Foer can ever have met anybody who had to learn a second language, or he would have realized that this is just not the way these things work. If you don’t know the easy words, like “good,” you’ll not know the hard words, like “beneficial.” Maybe it’s just me, but I threw the book across the room at page twenty or so, because I couldn’t stand it. (_Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close_, his second book, though good in parts, suffers from the most deplorable conceit of all literature and film: a precocious, way-above-his-age intelligent kid.) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/15 "2008-02-12T19:22:11Z")
[QUOTE=Enterprise] I don’t believe Foer can ever have met anybody who had to learn a second language, or he would have realized that this is just not the way these things work. If you don’t know the easy words, like “good,” you’ll not know the hard words, like “beneficial.” Maybe it’s just me, but I threw the book across the room at page twenty or so, because I couldn’t stand it. [/QUOTE] Actually, probably most Japanese kids know more wierd English words than they know common ones since the emphasis in their classes is to pass written vocabulary tests, not to actually be able to fashion meaningful sentences and whatnot. “Good” would have been on the 1st grade English tests and long forgotten, “beneficial” will have been studied more recently, so possibly still in their memory. Of course, that says nothing about Ukrainian school’s teaching style, but it is theoretically possible. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/16 "2008-02-12T20:00:52Z")
Since we’re talking about techniques authors use to convey language, I have to second one another poster pointed out in another thread (I don’t remember which one, sorry). It completely takes me out of a story when I encounter a character who speaks a foreign language fluently, except for the words “hello,” “good bye,” “thank you,” “please,” “sir,” etc. ---
**Author:** ![chocolatefrog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/41988e/32.png) [@chocolatefrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chocolatefrog)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/17 "2008-02-12T20:13:47Z")
I don’t think ‘yen’ is the right word for sparrow in Mandarin, but it’s a match for swallow, or 燕. Sparrow would be 麻雀, or ma2 que4. So her name should be Little Swallow :D. But it is possible for 2 mandarin speakers to do this, as there are more characters in mandarin than there are sounds, and different characters may share the same sound. If I want to know the exact meaning of the name, I would have to verify the characters in it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2008, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/18 "2008-02-12T21:33:38Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone] “Xiao as in…” He sketches the word for ‘little’ in midair with a finger. [/QUOTE] Well, if the author had written that, then **Left Hand of Dorkiness** or some other pedant would run in here complaining that nobody traces words in the air. (You always trace onto your hand or other flat surface otherwise the observer sees a mirror-image of the word if you are facing them.) That’s the problem with a writer trying to get every detail right after one or two exposures, which I suspect is the case for the author of “Paper Mage”. However, this exchange probably happens somewhere in the world every second of every day, so even if it doesn’t “ring true” for you, that doesn’t make it a “stupid language conceit”. I don’t blame the author for fumbling a small detail or two. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/19 "2008-02-13T01:33:54Z")
[QUOTE=The Controvert] Well, if the author had written that, then **Left Hand of Dorkiness** or some other pedant [/QUOTE] Watch it with the insults, buddy, especially when they’re so ironic. I can imagine similar confusion in English around the word swallow. Imagine the following passage: > [@](#): > > “Might I have the honor of knowing your name?” he asked, very formally. > > “My family name is Fu, my formal name is Xi Wen, but everyone calls me Wee Swallow.” > > “‘Wee’ as in small?” the man asked. > > “Yes,” Wee Swallow said. And ‘Swallow’ as is the bird, the little brown one, that Wang Tie-Tie tells me stories about, that would die before it stole food." > > “A swallow,” the man said. > > “Correct,” Wee Swallow replied. Even if everything else made sense, the repetition of “swallow” at the end would be stupid. It’s poor writing. But count on the straight dope always to have someone stubbornly defend anything, no matter how stupid; it’s part of the charm of the place. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2008, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236/20 "2008-02-13T01:55:21Z")
_shrug_ We’re trying to explain certain features of the Chinese language, of which you appear not be aware, that makes the quoted conversation not inconceivable. You seem to have already decided that this is absolutely unacceptable. I haven’t read the book, so I have no opinion on it. But this thread makes me want go read it now. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/annoying-language-conceits-in-paper-mage-and-elsewhere/437236.md?page=2)