# What ever happened to wang?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-wang/106073>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 28, 2002, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-wang/106073 "2002-04-28T06:57:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Baron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9de0a6/32.png) [@Baron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-wang/106073/21 "2002-04-29T01:05:02Z")

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According to a Taiwanese friend, Wang roughly means “king” in Mandarin.

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**Author:** ![Yue\_Han](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/eada6e/32.png) [@Yue\_Han](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yue_Han)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-wang/106073/22 "2002-04-29T01:28:05Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> According to a Taiwanese friend, Wang roughly means “king” in Mandarin.

Indeed it does. The character is three horizontal lines connected through the middle by a vertical, because the king was supposed to be the axis of the three realms of earth, sky, and humanity. And it’s pronounced /wahng/. (There are other words pronounced the same way but this is the one that’s a surname.)

–John

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**Author:** ![Arken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@Arken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arken)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2002, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-wang/106073/23 "2002-04-29T02:31:31Z")

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I don’t know about the rest of you, but to THIS guy, ‘wang’ means ‘king’ in English too. 😉

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2002, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-wang/106073/24 "2002-04-30T23:48:01Z")

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I prefer to translate ‘wang’ as ‘deity’.

😃

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