translation question: a strange sentence

[Lu]

In the book I'm currently reading I read the following sentence:

老人(...)继续推着液化气罐缓缓走向前方，我顺着他来的方向看了一眼，几里之外，在夜色和橘黄色灯光的边缘，掩盖在不知名的雾气里有一个工厂，那里杵着两个大罐头，想来老人是刚换完液化气回家。

'The old man continued to slowly push his liquid gas bottles forward, I looked in the direction he came from, a few miles away, on the border of the dark night and the orange glow of the streetlight, covered in a strange mist, there was a factory, two big bottles were standing there, I thought the old man was probably on his way home after changing his gas bottles.'

This sentence puzzles me: if the factory is a few miles away, how can 我 still see those two gas bottles standing there? Or am I reading this wrong?

Thanks for any pointers!

[Kenny同志]

Lu, there was possibility that the gas containers (note that the author used 兩個大罐頭) were huge and it was from which the old man refilled his smaller gas containers. So it was entirely possible that the two huge containers were visible from one or two miles away at night if there was light.

That being said, 杵 is wrongly used; the author should have used 立.

Two stylistic issues:

緩緩走向前方 is not as good as 緩緩前行.

掩盖在不知名的雾气里有一个工厂 is Anglicised Chinese to me, a more natural way of saying this is 有一個工廠掩蓋在霧氣中.

[陳德聰]

杵

Taiwan MOE

名

1. 舂米、擣藥、擣衣或擣實砂土時用的圓木棒。由上細下粗的堅木做成。如：「藥杵」、「杵臼」。易經˙繫辭下：「斷木為杵，掘地為臼。」唐˙儲光羲˙田家雜興詩八首之一：「百草被霜露，秋山響砧杵。」

2. 兵器名。因形如杵而得名。書經˙武成：「罔有敵于我師，前徒倒戈，攻于後以北，血流漂杵。」宋史˙卷二七九˙呼延贊傳：「及作破陣刀、降魔杵；鐵折上巾，兩旁有刃，皆重十數斤。」

動

1. 捅、突刺。如：「拿指頭杵他一下。」

2. 呆立不動。如：「你杵在那裡幹嘛？」

edit x2: haven't quite figured out what's up with the link.

disagree with odd prescriptive style comments as usual.

[Kenny同志]

《現代漢語詞典》（商務出版社 第六版）

杵：①一頭粗一頭細的圓木棒，用來在臼裏搗糧食等或洗衣服時捶衣服；②用杵搗；③用細長的東西戳或捅。

《兩岸現代漢語常用詞典》（中華語文出版社 第一版）

杵：①舂米、捶洗衣服等用的圓木棒，一頭略細作握柄。捶衣用的也叫棒槌；②用杵搗；③用棍狀物戳或捅。

註：此典係北京語言大學與臺北中華語文研習所合編。

《王力古漢語詞典》（中華書局）

杵：①舂米、捶衣、築土用的棒槌；②搗、砸。

《古代漢語詞典》（商務出版社）

杵：①舂米、捶衣、築土等搗物用的棒槌或木棒；②兵器名。形如杵；③通“櫓”。大盾。

Anyway, I had never seen nor heard the word used that way. It can be from dialectal use but sounds weird and wrong in standard Chinese used on the Mainland. I'd like to see what our forum members from Taiwan have to say about the word.

[Kenny同志]

I don't mind people disagreeing with me. It's fine. But your attitude has been irritating me, really.

[陳德聰]

Apparently the writer is 韩寒... So I think the discussion is moot. Though I think it highly unlikely that he used a word "wrongly", and that it was deliberate.

Sounds like a vivid description to me.

[Lu]

Yes it's from 韩寒's 《1988》, so no Taiwanese Mandarin issues. In the book, the 我 is a journalist, so I wouldn't expect it to be a matter of dialect either, assuming it's deliberate. I for one find prescriptivist comments interesting.

[Guest realmayo]

Western convention: "this usage is non-standard (but of course you may well have a good reason for deploying it and everything's relative anyway, who am I to judge, allow me to wring my hands)."

Chinese convention: "this usage is incorrect (and you better have a very high standing if you're going to innovate this way, else I'll slap your wrists)."

Agree?

[陳德聰]

Language is language regardless of east-west conventions, and it changes whether you/he/she/we/they like it or not.

As for the size of the canisters, I was picturing silos or those funky liquified air tanks they sometimes have at hospitals (if that is what those are, I don't even actually know).

[Kenny同志]

閣下有所不知，2012歲末，大陸權威語文刊物《咬文嚼字》公佈名人博客文字使用調查結果，結果韓寒文字錯誤率高居榜首。即便是書籍，大陸出版商粗製濫造，其中有錯字亦並非罕事。鄙人讀書雖少，然所細閱之書亦不下數十本，其中無錯字者鮮矣！

論及文格，確分優劣。若有人喜『事故導致車體發生嚴重的變形。』甚於『事故導致車體嚴重變形。』，無可厚非。但識者好意提醒，曉以其弊，亦並無不妥。今日之事，好比一人入鮑魚之肆，久而不聞其臭，旁人示以芝蘭之香，反而見譏。幸持余文格之論者，非余一人，金庸、思果、余光中諸先生亦與余見相同。

You probably didn’t know that at the end of 2012, 咬文嚼字, an authoritative periodical on the use of the Chinese language, did a survey on language use of blogs of Chinese celebrities and found that Hanhan’s blog was among the ones where typos were rife. Even in books, due to Mainland publishers’ shoddy practice, wrong characters are no rare. Of the books I’ve read, those free from wrong characters (and misspelled English words if there are any) are few.

As far as styles are concerned, some are indeed better than the others. If there are people who prefer 事故導致車體發生嚴重的變形 to 事故導致車體嚴重變形, it’s totally fine. Yet one who is more knowledgeable in Chinese shouldn’t be blamed when he tries to point out in good faith the flaws of a certain sentence.

Edit: Language does change. And it changes whether we like it or not. That it changes towards being better or worse, however, is a different matter.

附：評人之文，本屬愚事。明知愚而為之，愚不可及也！吾當克己。

[Guest realmayo]

Language is language regardless of east-west conventions

Erm, very nice. I was referring to how people from different places treat language. Presumably you're not prescribing a uniform approach?

[Lu]

Edit: Language does change. And it changes whether we like it or not. That it changes towards being better or worse, however, is a different matter.

It changes for different. Whether it's better or worse depends mainly on the skills of the writer. I'm sure there was shoddy use of language and people complaining about it in the Tang dynasty too.

[Kenny同志]

Whether it's better or worse depends mainly on the skills of the writer.

Good point. It's bad Chinese that I am opposed to. As I made it clear before, the Anglicisiation of Chinese isn't necessarily bad.

[陳德聰]

今日之事，好比一人入鮑魚之肆，久而不聞其臭，旁人示以芝蘭之香，反而見叱。幸持余文格之論者，非余一人，金庸、思果、余光中諸先生亦與余見相同。

Clever.

I'm reading up on this survey and seeing typos, but wondering how many involve accidentally mistaking 杵 for 立, or typing 杵 instead of 立. Otherwise sounds like a giant straw man to me.

I'm in the camp that says no language change is good or bad, but that's just me.

[Mindmaxd]

I think 杵 sounds a little fun and Hanhan like use that way to write,We use it sometimes.like 他杵的那儿一动不动的...

[roddy]

Fortunately, the rules on signatures are much more simple:

Signatures should be no more than two lines of standard-sized text.

Cough cough. Kenny. Cough cough.

[Kenny同志]

Ah, sorry big brother, I should have taken a look at the rules. Now I've edited my signature. Smaller, yet looks much nicer.

[roddy]

阿Sir，我不做大哥好久了。。。

[Kenny同志]

是嗎？既然如此，那本警官就放你一馬。

[roddy]

Good. Now stop posting all in Chinese! ;-)

Incidentally, I don't think there's ever been a time (certainly in the modern era) where someone, somewhere, hasn't thought their language was being brought to destruction by the poor linguistic quality of younger writers. And yet, somehow, we survive...