有机

[Pedroski]

The sentence before he said:

一般企业更多雇用的是员工的双手和双脚，而不是员工最有价值和创造力的部位--大脑。

I have this sentence:

面对这一业界难题，我们公司看到的不是两难，而是有机结合。

 

How should I interpret '有机结合‘？

 

有机 can mean 有机会  have a lucky chance ‘他有机可乘了。‘, but I don't think that is the meaning here, no '可乘‘.

 

Can you think of some other words to replace it without changing the meaning?

 

I think the logic goes like this: nowadays, people don't want chemicals in their food. 有机牛奶，有机蔬菜， 有机肉， 等等。These are considered 'good'. By association, 有机 has acquired a by-meaning of 'good'. Therefore, '不是两难，而是有机结合‘ means 'is not a dilemma, but a good combination'. This may of course be entirely fictious and irrelevant, based on a false premise.

 

Does '有机‘ mean 'good' here? Does it have other nuances of meaning？Does it mean something completely different?

 

[Tiana]

Does '有机‘ mean 'good' here? Does it have other nuances of meaning？Does it mean something completely different?

 

Yes, you've got quite close there. '有机‘ here means "organic", not as in chemistry, but in the sense of being good, skilful,  flexible, etc.

[Lu]

Pedroski, do you have a dictionary? If you need the meaning of a word, you can try searching first. Youdao and Iciba are ok dictionaries, and Jukuu is also a useful tool.

[Vildhjerp]

Whenever I used to read texts and 机 would happen to appear, the first thing in my mind was always "oh, some kind of machine", but after being introduced to so many new words that had absolutely nothing to do with machinery, I soon realized that 机 must have some other meaning that I was not quite understanding. Coincidentally, 有机 was one of the first I encountered. At first, I thought it was some conjunction I'd never seen before, as the character composition of some conjunctions in Chinese make little to no sense to me, but I should have known it was an adjective, as most words that begin with 有 are.

 

If you trace back the evolution of 机, you'll find that not only did it mean "machine", but it also encompassed the "crucial parts of a machine".

If you go back even further, you'll see that "crucial parts of a machine" evolved from "crucial parts of the human body".

 

"crucial parts of the human body" ≈ organs, 有机 ≈ "to have organs", "to have organs" ≈ organic

 

That's my logic behind its conception, taking into consideration that 有机 was probably modeled after the West's "organic" after the Chinese were first exposed to such a word, even though in Chinese, it doesn't make... as much sense. It's somewhat a direct translation.

 

Therefore, 有机结合 should be "organic combination", which, using Tiana's definition, you could reinterpret into a "flexible combination" or perhaps a "natural combination", in the sense of being smooth and easy to combine.

 

And I wouldn't translate 有机会 into "to have a lucky chance". I'd say it's more "to have the opportunity to". It's 有+机会, not 有机+会.

[陳德聰]

I think this makes complete sense in English as an "organic combination". We often talk about groups or projects that come together organically, teams that work well together also come to mind. I think here "organic" just means "natural", and the same holds for the Chinese. 有機結合 just means a combination that comes about naturally. There is no "good" connotation here, you made that up in your head.

[Yao Cheng]

I would say 有机结合 =to integrate, which means that you combine two or more things in order to become more effective.

[Tiana]

"有机结合" can be used as a verb (phrase) but here it'd be helpful to the OP to point out that it is used as a noun (phrase), or he might embark on a fruitless wild-goose chase

 

See how this noun is used contrastively to the preceding noun, "两难":

(我们公司看到的) 不是两难，而是有机结合: (We see it) not as a question of either or, but as a matter of flexible combination (between the two).

[Pedroski]

Thanks for the comments. I like fruit with my goose or my gander, so I will avoid such an embarcation!

 

Am I correct in assuming, that what is being '结合‘ is 雇员的 '双手‘ and '大脑‘？ These are, from the moment of conception, in the most literal sense 'organically linked'. A company cannot simply employ a pair of hands.

 

What exactly is being linked? Is 有机结合 just an unfortunate turn of phrase? FLTRP 北京 sometimes seems to write some strange phrases.

[陳德聰]

No.

 

The 結合 is of the two choices between 雙手 and 大腦, of course each being metaphors for physical labour and intellectual labour. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the phrase.

 

面对这一业界难题，我们公司看到的不是两难，而是有机结合。

Facing this tough issue (of whether to hire 'hands' and 'feet' or 'brains'), our company does not see a dilemma (necessitating a choice of one or the other but not both, as is explained in #7), but an organic combination (of choosing both).