Trope: Chinese word for crisis is composed of elements danger and opportunity (maybe 1937)

[Jonathan Lighter]

FWIW, the important passage cited by Garson finishes with the words, "a
discovery which makes China and every mission land seem nearer."

The tiny picture of the cover/title page shown by GB includes a tiny date
which is nearly illegible but almost certainly ends with the numeral "7."

JL
On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 2:33 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Trope: Chinese word for crisis is composed of elements danger
> and
>              opportunity (maybe 1937)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ben was able to find a great 1938 cite when he searched for this trope
> a few years ago, and1938 still appears to be the earliest date.
>
> Here is a link into Google Books that shows a snippet of a work that
> is probably properly dated 1937.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=nUrPAAAAMAAJ&q=meaningful#search_anchor
>
> (Snippet text)
>
> The inscribing was generously done by Pastor Y. C. Ching of the First
> Baptist Church of Shanghai. Doubly meaningful are these characters:
> one is the Chinese way of describing danger; the other pictures
> opportunity. Synonyms of the English word crisis have been discovered
> likewise to be danger, opportunity—a discovery which makes ...
>
> The cover displayed by Google Books says the volume is the "Report of
> the Forty-ninth Annual Meeting of the Woman's Missionary Union,
> Auxiliary to Southern Baptist Convention". The Duke catalog says the
> 37th meeting was held in 1925 and the 38th was held in 1926.
> Extrapolating suggests the 49th was held in 1937 which is consistent
> with the date assigned by Google Books.
>
> HathiTrust has the work and also gives it a date of 1937. It is
> "Limited (search only)".
>
> http://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89096037247
>
> Checking this on paper is a hassle since it is not available in many
> libraries – none near me. The date could be inaccurate if several
> convention reports are combined in one volume, or for other reasons.
>
> Garson
>
> On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Ben Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: well-traveled snowclone
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 9:00 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>  An old business snowclone involves the alleged danger/opportunity or
> >> risk/opportunity duality in a single character. Another version that
> >> made it into Tom Wolfe's novels is that the Chinese word for "crisis" is
> >> composed of two symbols--for danger and for opportunity.
> >>
> >> Language Log had covered this before:
> >>
> >> http://bit.ly/c9HFXl
> >>
> >> with a nod to a more direct debunking
> >>
> >> http://bit.ly/cWaoWs
> >>
> >> This morning, on Colorado Public Radio, Tom Tancredo invented yet
> >> another version:
> >>
> >> "Chinese symbol for opportunity and problem is the same symbol."
> >
> > For historical background on the spread of the trope, both in its
> > "crisis = danger + opportunity" and "crisis = opportunity" variants,
> > see my Language Log post:
> >
> > http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004343.html
> >
> > Related posts listed here:
> >
> > http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1212
> >
> > --bgz
> >
> >
> > --
> > Ben Zimmer
> > http://benzimmer.com/
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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