Calling a spade, a spade....

[TenTigers]

The Chinese call Kung Fu, "Chuan Fa/Kyuhn Faat" which means "Fist Method."

anyone else see the redundancy of this statement?
of course they call it Kung-Fu. It's a Chinese term! Ya jabonie! Who do you think created the term, white guys?!!sheesh!

[TenTigers]

The Chinese use the term"Kung-Fu," because as with many things, the term describes the concept, which encompasses so much more than simply, "Hand to Hand" or "Martial Art."
The high level of skill that is developed through time, effort, patience, dedication, constant practice. Not simply the physical skill, but the knowledge and understanding of your art. The ability to take a skill and develop it to its highest degree-Art. The ability to not simply practice a set of skills, but weave the entire process into the fabric of your being.
That is Kung-Fu.
to call it anything less would be to cheapen it.

[GreenCloudCLF]

And how is this argument different from the MMA vs. CMA arguments? Come on now, it's just the same argument in disguise.

BTW you're not supposed to use call a spade a spade anymore because it has racist connotations.

I asked a bunch of people if this was a racist remark, and they all told me "no". Does anyone actually know the history of this saying?

[GreenCloudCLF]

OK, I stole this from here

"to call a spade a spade"

(Phrase Origins)



is NOT an ethnic slur.
It derives from an ancient Greek expression: _ta syka syka, te:n
skaphe:n de skaphe:n onomasein_ = "to call a fig a fig, a trough a
trough". This is first recorded in Aristophanes' play _The Clouds_
(423 B.C.), was used by Menander and Plutarch, and is still current
in modern Greek. There has been a slight shift in meaning: in
ancient times the phrase was often used pejoratively, to denote a
rude person who spoke his mind tactlessly; but it now, like the
English phrase, has an exclusively positive connotation. It is
possible that both the fig and the trough were originally sexual
symbols.
In the Renaissance, Erasmus confused Plutarch's "trough"
(_skaphe:_) with the Greek word for "digging tool" (_skapheion_;
the two words are etymologically connected, a trough being
something that is hollowed out) and rendered it in Latin as _ligo_.
Thence it was translated into English in 1542 by Nicholas Udall in
his translation of Erasmus's version as "to call a spade [...] a
spade". (_Bartlett's Familiar Quotations_ perpetuates Erasmus'
error by mistranslating _skaphe:_ as "spade" three times under
Menander.)
"To call a spade a bloody shovel" is not recorded until 1919.
"Spade" in the sense of "Negro" is not recorded until 1928. (It
comes from the colour of the playing card symbol, via the phrase
"black as the ace of spades".)

This, of course, does *not* necessarily render the modern use of
"to call a spade a spade" "politically correct". Rosalie Maggio, in
_The Bias-Free Word-Finder_, writes: "The expression is associated
with a racial slur and is to be avoided", and recommends using "to
speak plainly" or other alternatives instead. In another entry, she
writes: "Although by definition and derivation 'niggardly' and
'******' are completely unrelated, 'niggardly' is too close for
comfort to a word with profoundly negative associations. Use
instead one of the many available alternatives: stingy, miserly,
parsimonious..." Beard and Cerf, in _The Official Politically
Correct Handbook_, p. 123, report that an administrator at the
University of California at Santa Cruz campaigned for the banning
of such phrases as "a ***** in his armor" and "a nip in the air",
because "*****" and "nip" are also derogatory terms for "Chinese
person" and "Japanese person" respectively. In the late 1970s in
the U.S., a boycott of the (now defunct) Sambo's restaurant chain
was organized, even though the name "Sambo's" was a combination of
the names of its two founders and did not come from the offensive
word for dark-skinned person.

[GeneChing]

To get back OT, the general public will call martial arts 'martial arts'. There's no way you can change what goes into the popular vernacular. For example, it's always driven me nuts that we translate dao as broadsword. That's totally inaccurate. But there's no way to change it.

Here - check out this old e-zine article: Wushu Needs Name Rectification by An Tianrong

[David Jamieson]

BUt if you called it a "do" then you'd have to validate those kentucky kempo kooks (kkk)

j/k you guys, get a sense of humour already.

[Mr Punch]

This, of course, does *not* necessarily render the modern use of
"to call a spade a spade" "politically correct". Rosalie Maggio, in
_The Bias-Free Word-Finder_, writes: "The expression is associated
with a racial slur and is to be avoided", and recommends using "to
speak plainly" or other alternatives instead. In another entry, she
writes: "Although by definition and derivation 'niggardly' and
'******' are completely unrelated, 'niggardly' is too close for
comfort to a word with profoundly negative associations. Use
instead one of the many available alternatives: stingy, miserly,
parsimonious..." Beard and Cerf, in _The Official Politically
Correct Handbook_, p. 123, report that an administrator at the
University of California at Santa Cruz campaigned for the banning
of such phrases as "a ***** in his armor" and "a nip in the air",
because "*****" and "nip" are also derogatory terms for "Chinese
person" and "Japanese person" respectively.

This is like a list of words to become even more bloody-minded about using.

Now this is a spade!