NERDING OUT ON LANGUAGE (Part 1)

I've always been a huge fan of etymologies, but in English they are sometimes rather hard to track down. Why something is spelled a certain way and what its Latin root might have to do with that or to say about that is rarely apparent (though for the curious and diligent, there are great rewards to be reaped in discovering, via the OED, that 'science' derives from the same root as 'shit'). There is plenty of obscurity in Chinese when it comes to the original meanings and forms of characters, but there are also lots of compelling and often amusing etymologies built right in.

In English we have the term "to butter up", the meaning of which seems metaphorically intuitive and obvious to a native speaker but really, what the hell does an oily preparation have to do with achieving some alternate motive through flattery? Can anyone think of a good reason?

In class this week, I had to try to explain the similar Chinese term 拍马屁 (pai ma pi), or to "pat horse buttocks", to a classmate, who is perpetually doing exactly this in order to get at the delicious cougar snacks he knows I have stored in my locker. "Perhaps your neighbor has a new horse", I told him, "and you want something from him, or maybe just to build good relations with him, so when you see his new horse you pat the horse butt and say: "this horse is very attractive" or something like that. You do this because you have another goal in mind" (incredibly, in Chinese, this probably sounded even more ridiculous).

Another of my favorite Chinese phrases (set expressions called chengyu) came up this week in our readings. Although it simply means "not enough to go around", the Chinese term is so much better. How much do I wish that somewhere out there, some nouveau riche Chinese "Socialist" is surveying his party and saying aloud "gosh, I thought I bought enough cocaine and hookers, but it looks like I've got a real 'monks-many-porridge-few' (粥少僧多) situation on my hands?

Answer: a lot.