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Re: OT: Junk/Dim S(ui)m

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Monday, September 15, 2003, 17:18
Mark J. Reed scripsit:

> It's another example of the English using "Chinese" to indicate > variance from a word's normal meaning. At least in this case it's not > directly pejorative, unlike, say, "Chinese fire drill", etc.
Fair enough. But though "Dutch" is often used in the same way (D. anchor, D. courage, double D., D. treat, etc. etc.), a Dutch auction (the asking price is lowered steadily until someone bids) actually does seem to have been in use there. The gambling aspect of what Kou described does make it seem at least a tad Chinese.... -- My corporate data's a mess! John Cowan It's all semi-structured, no less. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan But I'll be carefree jcowan@reutershealth.com Using XSLT http://www.reutershealth.com In an XML DBMS.

Replies

Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>