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"><div class="content__header tonal__header u-cf"><div class="gs-container"><div class="content__main-column"><h1 class="content__headline js-score" itemprop="headline"> China bans wordplay in attempt at pun control
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Officials say casual alteration of idioms risks nothing less than ‘cultural and linguistic chaos’, despite their common usage
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China’s print and broadcast watchdog says puns may mislead the public –
especially children. Photograph: Chen Li/ Chen Li/Xinhua Press/Corbis
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"><p class="byline" data-link-name="byline" data-component="meta-byline"><span itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemprop="author">
<a rel="author" class="tone-colour" itemprop="url name" data-link-name="auto tag link" href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/taniabranigan">Tania Branigan</a></span> in Beijing</p><p class="content__dateline" aria-hidden="true">
<time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2014-11-28T07:26:18-0500" data-timestamp="1417177578000">
Friday 28 November 2014 <span class="content__dateline-time">07.26 EST</span>
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</p><p class="content__dateline" aria-hidden="true">From online discussions to adverts, Chinese culture is full of puns.
But the country’s print and broadcast watchdog has ruled that there is
nothing funny about them.</p></div><div class="content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body" itemprop="articleBody" data-test-id="article-review-body"><p>It has banned wordplay on the grounds that it breaches the law on
standard spoken and written Chinese, makes promoting cultural heritage
harder and may mislead the public – especially children.</p><p>The casual alteration of idioms risks nothing less than “cultural and linguistic chaos”, it warns.</p><p>Chinese is perfectly suited to puns because it has so many
homophones. Popular sayings and even customs, as well as jokes, rely on
wordplay.</p><p>But the order from the State Administration for Press, Publication,
Radio, Film and Television says: “Radio and television authorities at
all levels must tighten up their regulations and crack down on the
irregular and inaccurate use of the Chinese language, especially the
misuse of idioms.”</p><p>Programmes and adverts should strictly comply with the standard
spelling and use of characters, words, phrases and idioms – and avoid
changing the characters, phrasing and meanings, the order said.</p><p>“Idioms are one of the great features of the Chinese language and
contain profound cultural heritage and historical resources and great
aesthetic, ideological and moral values,” it added.</p><p>“That’s the most ridiculous part of this: [wordplay] is so much part
and parcel of Chinese heritage,” said David Moser, academic director for
CET Chinese studies at Beijing Capital Normal University.</p><p>When couples marry, people will give them dates and peanuts – a reference to the wish <em>Zaosheng guizi</em> or “May you soon give birth to a son”. The word for dates is also <em>zao</em> and peanuts are <em>huasheng</em>.</p>
<div data-node-uid="7" id="dfp-ad--inline1" class="ad-slot ad-slot--dfp ad-slot--inline1 ad-slot--inline" data-link-name="ad slot inline1" data-test-id="ad-slot-inline1" data-name="inline1" data-mobile="1,1|300,50|300,250" data-mobile-landscape="1,1|300,50|320,50|300,250" data-tablet="1,1|300,250"><div class="ad-slot__label" data-test-id="ad-slot-label">The
notice cites complaints from viewers, but the examples it gives appear
utterly innocuous. In a tourism promotion campaign, tweaking the
characters used in the phrase <em>jin shan jin mei</em> – perfection –
has turned it into a slogan translated as “Shanxi, a land of
splendours”. In another case, replacing a single character in <em>ke bu rong huan</em> has turned “brook no delay” into “coughing must not linger” for a medicine advert.</div></div><p>“It could just be a small group of people, or even one person, who
are conservative, humourless, priggish and arbitrarily purist, so that
everyone has to fall in line,” said Moser.</p><p>“But I wonder if this is not a preemptive move, an excuse to crack
down for supposed ‘linguistic purity reasons’ on the cute language
people use to crack jokes about the leadership or policies. It sounds
too convenient.”</p><p>Internet users have been particularly inventive in finding
alternative ways to discuss subjects or people whose names have been
blocked by censors.</p><p>Moves to block such creativity have a long history too. Moser said Yuan Shikai, president of the Republic of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/china" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" data-component="auto-linked-tag" class=" u-underline">China</a> from 1912 to 1915, reportedly wanted to rename the Lantern Festival,<em> Yuan Xiao Jie</em>, because it sounded like “cancel Yuan day”.</p><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/28/china-media-watchdog-bans-wordplay-puns">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/28/china-media-watchdog-bans-wordplay-puns</a></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>