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Soundbites: Your *what* went bad?

Today’s pop quiz: Fill in the blank to name that lighting fixture component. Write it down so you can go to the store and buy it. Better yet, try to find it in a dictionary without using the English word that you already know.

24 hours to respond. Answer tomorrow. Winning entry receives usual jackpot. Terms and conditions and relevant departments may apply.

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Jiùshì bǎ zhèige liàngde, gē zài zhèige shàngtou yě bù liàng. Shì zhèi yìsī ma? Nà jiùshi ________ huàile. Jiù gāngcái gěi nín shuō de nèi báide: ________.
就是把这个亮的，搁在这个上头也不亮。是这意思吗？那就是________坏了。就刚才您说的那白的：________。
So you take this one that lights up and put it on top of this one and it doesn’t light up. Is this what you mean? Then your ________ definitely went bad. The thing that I was just telling you about, the white thing: the ________.

Bonus points: try this out on your southern-Mandarin-speaking friends and see if they hiccup.

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PS: Serious érhuàyīn and consonant elision here, but no time for serious analysis: these are soundbites!

Comments 7

  1. chriswaugh_bj wrote:

    I’m hearing “交流器”. I confess to using nciku and dict.cnki.net, but not via any English words.

    Posted 16 Oct 2009 at 10:49 am
  2. Randy Alexander wrote:

    Aw snap! WTF??? I wrote a comment but it seems to have disappeared. I’ll try to reconstruct it.

    I heard X流器, so I looked up 流器 on google images. On about the 13th page I saw a picture of a light bulb. Following that link I saw that the whole label was 镇流器, which nciku defines as “ballast”. Looking up “define: ballast” on google gives “an electrical device for starting and regulating fluorescent and discharge lamps” as the last wordnet definition.

    Posted 16 Oct 2009 at 11:55 am
  3. Sima wrote:

    That’ll be yer 整流器 that’s gone, guv. Could take a while. I’m gonna have see if they’re got any down at the depot… etc

    Posted 16 Oct 2009 at 11:56 am
  4. Sima wrote:

    Randy, you’ve really done for me there. Good show old chap.

    Posted 16 Oct 2009 at 11:58 am
  5. chriswaugh_bj wrote:

    My wife agrees with 镇流器, and this hearing I can’t understand why or how I heard 交流器 the first time round- not enough tea, perhaps.

    Posted 16 Oct 2009 at 6:15 pm
  6. hsknotes wrote:

    let the record state that i boycotted today’s event. I felt the rewards from my last participation in a contest were less than satisfactory.

    Posted 17 Oct 2009 at 1:12 am
  7. syz wrote:

    Randy, I’ll bet google keeps stats on this, but venturing a guess: you’re one of 47 people in the history of search who have made it to the 13th page of any results list. nice.

    I had a bit of poster’s remorse after putting this up, since all of a sudden it seemed too easy, almost the opposite of the usual situation, in this case I can promise you that the first time he said it it (before the recorder was on) it was infinitely less clear — like a big mouthful of mentou.

    Anyway, the answer’s already scheduled for later this morning. I’ll eventually include an addendum giving you official recognition, but I’m in the US right now and on a limited internet budget.

    Posted 17 Oct 2009 at 1:18 am