Today's new word
泼拉马鲁 Po lā mǎ lǔ transliteration of Polamalu, but literally translated Splash-pull-horse-rude
NFL season has started again, and Tuesday morning I was happy to turn on the Steelers Monday Night Football game on NFL China's media partner LeTV.com. The happiness didn't last long, turning to disappointment as the Steelers fell behind the much loathed (by Pittburghers, that is) Bengals. There were a few bright spots for me, though. The MNF audio was muted, over-dubbed with Chinese announcers. Since I am not a fan of some of the MNF crew, I definitely preferred the Chinese play-by-play. And on one replay, it was nice to hear them recognize Troy Polamalu as being 非常 (fēicháng, extraordinary) this and 非常 that. So there was that.
The transliteration of Troy Polamalu's name is interesting. As with other Chinese versions of Western names, it is more about pronunciation than meaning. "Polamalu" lends itself easily to having a clear, easy-to-say series of Chinese characters (as opposed to the more Germanic "Roethlisberger" 罗特利斯伯格 Luō tè lì sī bó gé, though on LeTV they sometimes just called him 大本 Dà běn, meaning "Big Ben").
The four characters that make up Polamalu read almost like a chengyu: "Splash pull horse rude." And of these four characters the one that really sticks out for me is "rude." It is a word that is the opposite of Polamalu, on and off the field, from what I've read. Splash and pull and horse all can make sense, if you stretch it to his manner of play. Perhaps other football players might be suitably 鲁 to earn the moniker. but not Troy.
NFL season has started again, and Tuesday morning I was happy to turn on the Steelers Monday Night Football game on NFL China's media partner LeTV.com. The happiness didn't last long, turning to disappointment as the Steelers fell behind the much loathed (by Pittburghers, that is) Bengals. There were a few bright spots for me, though. The MNF audio was muted, over-dubbed with Chinese announcers. Since I am not a fan of some of the MNF crew, I definitely preferred the Chinese play-by-play. And on one replay, it was nice to hear them recognize Troy Polamalu as being 非常 (fēicháng, extraordinary) this and 非常 that. So there was that.
The transliteration of Troy Polamalu's name is interesting. As with other Chinese versions of Western names, it is more about pronunciation than meaning. "Polamalu" lends itself easily to having a clear, easy-to-say series of Chinese characters (as opposed to the more Germanic "Roethlisberger" 罗特利斯伯格 Luō tè lì sī bó gé, though on LeTV they sometimes just called him 大本 Dà běn, meaning "Big Ben").
The four characters that make up Polamalu read almost like a chengyu: "Splash pull horse rude." And of these four characters the one that really sticks out for me is "rude." It is a word that is the opposite of Polamalu, on and off the field, from what I've read. Splash and pull and horse all can make sense, if you stretch it to his manner of play. Perhaps other football players might be suitably 鲁 to earn the moniker. but not Troy.
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