一分钱一分货

You might translate it like this:

You get one cent’s worth if you pay one cent.

It’s saying that if you pay very little for something, its quality isn’t very good. An equivalent expression in English:

You get what you pay for.

But I prefer the much more colourful:

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

An extremely low amount of money is often referred to as “peanuts”, which is where we get this expression. Or perhaps the other way around, I’m not sure.

particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings.

The above is taken from Wikipedia.

The Chinese is “反人道罪” or literally “Crimes against humanitarianism”, which makes more sense to me.

The Chinese word for “bookworm” is 书虫, literally “bookworm”. The Japanese is 本の虫, again, literally “bookworm”.

Coincidence?

The noun refers to a small ball, actually a kind of poison. You put them near clothes and they stop mould and moths from destroying them.

They smell quite bad, so you usually only use them for clothes that you aren’t going to use for a long time.

Over time the word “mothball” has gained another meaning. If you don’t plan on using something for a long time, of if you are abandoning it forever, you are “mothballing” it.

So:

Germany to mothball all 17 of its nuclear reactors (The German government plans to stop making nuclear power)

In June, the US space agency, Nasa, will mothball its whole fleet of space shuttles (NASA will stop using its space shuttles)

Don’t Mothball Your Old Car, Repair It For Less (You can repair your car, which is cheaper than selling it)

There has been some unrest in a Chinese town, and the police have offered a (x) of anything between 5000 and 10 000 RMB for information.

Have you decided on a translation? I’d go for “reward” or “cash reward” in this situation.

Here‘s some more on the story, from Reuters Africa.

As you might be able to see, my blog has been a bit sparse of late, so I’ve resolved to publish a post a day (a little optimistic?) outlining my word of the day. Most will probably be English words, all will be accompanied by some explanation (always in English).

Today’s word is scalp.

It’s both a noun and a verb.

As a noun, it refers to the part of your skin on top of your head that hair grows out of.

Some Native American tribes used to remove the scalp of their enemies, sometimes while they were still alive, and keep them. Often warriors would keep scalps with them, to show others how many enemies they had defeated. I think that this was when “scalp” became a verb, meaning “to remove the scalp off an enemy”. Wikipedia has quite a gruesome (black and white) photo of someone without their scalp. Nowadays, when you defeat someone in a way that makes you proud, or is particularly symbolic, you are often said to have their “scalp”.

I came across “scalp” the other day, with regard to Abu Bakar Bashir, an Indonesian muslim and convicted terrorist leader.

The guilty verdict for Abu Bakar Bashir this week is the latest in a series of scalps for Indonesian counter-terrorism authorities…

The Indonesian government didn’t remove his scalp, the word is still used figuratively.

When someone defeats someone else, particularly if the winner feels very proud about it, they are often said to have the “scalp” of the other person.

A quick Google search gives us a few examples:

Bashir Is Another Scalp for Indonesian Authorities (I’ve just mentioned this article).

Australians Claim Ivorian Scalp (The Australian football team defeated the Cote d’Ivorian football team. If you didn’t know, the Australian team isn’t very good.)

Carlton v West Coast Another sporting article. It mentions “top-four scalps”. If a team has a “top-four scalp” it means that it has already defeated one of the four best teams.

At 21 minutes, there comes a really tricky part. The general notices a word that the reporter asks in a question:

你了到［过大］这个字我有问题。You used the word “exaggerated” in your question, and I have a problem with that.

The general then goes on to say that “exaggerated” implies that something is over some baseline, and that that baseline is completely arbitrary.

Now it’s always hard to interpret when someone talks about one specific word because that one word might have different connotations in one language; the speaker might be talking about a connotation that isn’t present in the target language. It might not have even been present in the interpretation.

For the record, I didn’t hear the reporter use the word [过大/exaggerated] in his question.

Another really tricky bit for the Chinese to English interpreter comes 40 minutes in.

但是要清楚地懂得：击毙本 拉登肯能还有木拉登，还有嘿拉登还有崩拉登的问题。

I’ll give those of you who can read it a chance to give it a try. Don’t forget you’re at the Pentagon, with 50 reporters and a contingent of military representatives from China and the US waiting for you. Not to give you any extra pressure, just want you to get an idea of real working conditions.

Here’s a literal translation.

But we have to understand that killing Bin Laden still probably leaves the problem of Mu Laden, Heng Laden and Bung Laden.

Obviously Mu, Heng and Bung don’t exist, he’s just playing on words, implying that even after killing Osama, there are still other terrorist leaders out there (and they probably have names that are just as funny sounding).

The interpreter handled it well. You can actually hear her sigh on the original as the considers how to interpret it:

We have to be keenly aware that the killing of Bin Laden cannot prevent the emergence of other figureheads of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

巴基斯坦三军情报局 – Inter-services Intelligence – ISI The Pakistani intelligence agency.

伊斯兰堡－Islamabad

美巴关系 - The US/Pakistan relationship (etc). There is no one set phrase for this in English, but there is in Chinese. Confusingly, 巴 could also stand for Palestine, Brazil, Bahrain,

海葬 – burial at sea

扎瓦赫里 – Ayman al Zawahiri – Zawahiri Bin Laden’s second in command, and presumably the head of al Qaeda following his death.

海豹 – SEAL – Navy SEAL Notice SEAL is in capital letters.

More to come soon!