Stephen Chang - Hung gar Grandmaster?

[ctoepker]

Originally posted by Brad

A master painter or a grandmaster of chess are examples of how the term is more commonly used by English speakers.

And herein lies the irony. While the Chinese term uses "grand" as in "grandfather," self-aggrandizing people use "grand" as in "grandmaster" (of chess).

Its a non-point that we're speaking English. Of course we're speaking English. The point is that some are deliberatly mis-using the language and taking advantage of a couple hundred year old tradition of translation. We can put a stop to it by simply treating self-aggrandizing people like "granddads."

I believe that CFT is also correct that many use "grandmaster" to imply "founder." Not good in my book.

As for ancient texts...writings in and about religous and martial societies from at least 500 years ago contain "sifu," "sigong," etc. That includes novels, field reports from military police, historians, temple records, etc.

As for the English use of the words, check James Legge's (1815-1897) landmark translations of the Chinese classics. "Si" in its many forms as 'teacher' is translated "master."

In any case, I agree with everyone that self-aggrandizement by adopting high-faluting words is bad. However, I choose to address it with education. When you know that "grand" means "granddad" how funny is it that someone takes it to mean "great?" Hilarious in my book.

Besides, you can't stamp it out by just saying "watch out for 'grand'" because some very well-meaning traditional folks get tarred with that brush unfairly.


Sincerely,
CT