[lit-ideas] Re: magazine issue dates
- From: david ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 12:52:27 -0800
On Jan 9, 2006, at 12:12 PM, Paul Stone wrote:
I just got a magazine that I subscribe to and it was the MARCH
issue -- almost two months early.
Does anyone know the genesis of this madness?
It's because the times, they are a'changing, and we don't know what's
going to happen. How do I know that we don't know? I read the New
Yorker over lunch. January 9th issue--you probably got it five weeks
back. I read an article about global warming which begins with early
British butterfly collecting, moves to the University of York--oh, I
thought, Judy might be interested--and then scoots across to the
University of Oregon--oh, I thought, Robert might be...--and then has
a wonderful bit about a Quaker telling someone called Savage about
the green mountain's golden toad--oh, I thought, Eric will like this--
and then the piece wanders into Scotland--oh, I thought, I would like
this--and then, as is the way with New Yorker pieces, thousands of
words from the beginning you wind down from a summit and see that the
conclusion comes into view around a bend. And what is this
concluding sentence? "Part of it simply is we've got one planet, and
we are heading it in a direction in which, quite fundamentally, we
don't know what the consequences are going to be."
You want further evidence?
On the way to dinner with some friends yesterday evening, Julia
wanted me to clarify her understanding of China's history in the
first part of the twentieth century. I warned her that I was
reaching back to what I learned when I was about Emily's age, and
promised to do my best. We began with Sun Yat Sen. Yes, he was in
her text book. Julia must have attributed the difference between
what she was reading and how I was pronouncing to problem of accent.
In front of her was "Sun Yixian."
"And then," I said, "there was Chiang Kai-Shek."
"No," she said, "there was a general."
"Chiang was a general. Does your book not mention the Kuomintang?"
"They're in, but the next general was Yuan Shikai."
"I forgot about him. But he didn't last long, right?"
"He died in 1916."
"When did he come to power?"
"It doesn't say. Sun came to power in 1912."
"So Yuan ruled somewhere between an unidentified date after that and
1916...not long. And he lost power to warlords."
"That's in there."
"So then came Chiang Kai-Shek."
"No, Jiang Jieshi."
"I don't remember him at all. Are you sure?"
"It says, 'After Sun Yixian died in 1925, Jiang Jieshi (jee-ahng jee-
shee)'...oh...'formerly called Chiang Kai-Shek, headed the Kuomintang.'"
When we arrived, I asked our Chinese friends what this change was all
about. They said it's the same shift as the change from Peking to
Beijing. Peking was a British approximation of what Cantonese people
called the capitol city. "Beijing" is closer to the Mandarin
pronunciation. Sun Yat Sen, Cantonese; Sun Yixian, Mandarin. But
Chiang Kai-Shek, Cantonese translates to Jiang Jie-*shuh* in Mandarin.
We may have found an error in a textbook. Quick, call the magazines.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
