Tin is not a possible syllable in Chinese, and Ting sounds like a girl's name, so the best they could do was Ding-ding. You know, like a bell. A tin bell. Like a tinker would make.
The character 丁 is the fourth Celestial Stem, and as such is used to translate the letter D when used in an ordinal sense -- that is, when A, B, C, and D are used in the sense of "one, two, three, four," as in an outline or on a multiple-choice test. For example, Serie D football is rendered 丁級 in Chinese. So if you wanted to go Backstroke of the West on poor Tintin and translate his Chinese translation back into English, he'd be called DD.
The largest pharmacy in my town is named after Tintin.
Notice how the sign has a T followed by the Rx pharmacy symbol: T. rex. I'm not sure what the T is there for, unless it stands for Tintin. (Years ago, this pharmacy had the English name Tintin on its sign in addition to the Chinese, but it was taken off a long time ago.) Note that we've already connected the T. rex with the Tin Lizzie (Zeus lizard).
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Comments are not searchable, so I haven't had the patience to track them down, but some time ago there was a comment by Bruce Charlton on this blog which dismissed unusual conceptions of time with a phrase like wibbledy-wobbledy timey-wimey stuff. Something like that; I'm sure timey-wimey was in there. I believe it's the standard term in Britbongistan.
More recently, WanderingGondola left a comment that also referred to timey-wimey stuff. I think it was about a 4chan comment that had been posted earlier than the post it was replying to, "implying that some timey-wimey stuff is going on." Either she was humorously referencing Bruce's earlier comment, or else Australian English is much more British than I've been led to believe!
(If any of my indefatigable readers can track down either of the timey-wimey comments, do post the link in the comments.)
Today, I spotted this at my school:
That's a T. rex-like dinosaur paired with the word little, so it counts as a mini T. rex. (It's a weird picture, too. Is that a floating bowling ball? And why is it raining Christmas trees?) As for the other word, it looks a bit timey-wimey, doesn't it, old chap?
Possibly relevant: the uail, the wolcano, and the other bric-a-brac of the Right.
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Update: My readers have informed me that timey-wimey is a Dr. Who reference, which explains my ignorance. I never did much like medical dramas.
8 comments:
I can't give the link for the comments you were referring to, but I can tell you that, "Wibbely wobbely, timey wimey" is a Doctor Who reference/quote from the David Tennant years -
- it was first used in one of the best episodes ever, "Don't Blink", which introduced a somewhat iconic 'new' (for the 2000's reboot) villain, The Weeping Angels.
This somewhat explains why you might most often see the phrase in both British & Australian 'sources'...plus of course, American fans of the show, such as my family ;^)
Carol
I'm not sure about Bruce's comment, but knew mine were fairly recent. Were, because your memory combined two! Timey-wimey dream, and 4chan trick posts.
For the record, I'm surprisingly not a Doctor Who fan. I picked up the phrase through some combination of TV Tropes (blurse that site) and a former boyfriend who did like the Doctor.
Bonus sync time! I'm typing this on my morning bus trip. As one girl alighted, I got a quick glimpse of part of her shirt -- the words "time travel", and a T. rex halfway through swallowing a person.
Heheh, geeky (gamma?) rage bait. If that was Comic Sans instead of Papyrus, you'd have me slightly miffed!
neat Star Wars reference
Dr. Spock was always my favorite Star Wars character.
I dunno that hand signal thing Kirk does in the meme is pretty terrific
@ben
"That hand signal thing"? You mean the Jedi salute!
Wingardium Leviosa
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