danger + opportunity ≠ crisis?
I have read Victor Mair’s essay danger + opportunity ≠ crisis some time ago and agree with his general point that folk etymology is a dangerous thing (that’s the first character above, wēi). But there was always a lingering dissenting voice in the back of my mind.
Mark Liberman (LanguageLog) picked on this, again, yesterday when Al Gore was quoted to have repeated this urban myth several times. So I thought I’d put my 2 cents here.
The question is not with the "danger" part. It’s the "jī" or the 2nd character. Victor argues that it’s a neutral morpheme, with one of the meanings being "occasion," which could be good or bad or neutral. My sense, though, is that Ji is generally more positive than negative, and thus the urban myth has some kernel of truth in it.
2 lines of evidence:
1). If we look at all words in which Ji apears and has something to do with time/occasion, I bet the majority are positive occasions, hence "opportunity" would not be a bad translation. (need to list here).
2). Ji in this sense is a bound morpheme in most case, but it appears at least once in an idiom: Ji1-bu4-ke3-shi1, shi2-bu2-zai4-lai2 (characters to follow). In this case Ji is evidently possitive, else the whole thing wouldn’t make sense.
That’s all the time I have today. Will go to my daughter’s swim meet in 20 minutes. That’s a good Ji.
[Updates May 1, 2007:
1. Somehow this one is picked up by LanguageLog; see my comments below.
2. I now found the earlier post on this back in 2005. I made exactly the same point, as did others cited in that post.
]
March 27th, 2007 at 5:04 am e
Gary,
I agree with your analysis of the character Ji. I think the meaning of many characters are derived from the meanings of the words include them.
Well, a flying ‘Ji’ (飛機) will take Chung-Hui and me to Boston tomorrow. See you there!
Shiou-yuan
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:05 am e
Hi Gary,
Searching Google for my Matlab+Tobii problem I stumbled at your nice blog. Is it possible that you mail my so I can reply you with my problem. I don’t want to expand on it in your comments ; )
Regards Michiel
April 26th, 2007 at 8:47 am e
For further discussion, see http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004343.html
No disagreement at all with the overall message: Etymology is best left to the hands of lexicographers and linguists. Folk etymology is often enjoyable as a process, but not necessarily as a product.
You expected a big “but”, right?
There is none, because we are not talking about etymology here; the issue is translation, i.e., the best mapping between 2 lemma in two different languages. There is no reason that a perfect mapping exists in the joint semantic space — in fact there may not be a joint semantic space to begin with. The bottom of the matter is “can JI be translated as Opportunity here in this phrase/word?”
Victor’s point is because WEI JI is just as dangerous in Chinese as in English, there is no reason to translated JI as opportunity, even though JI is used both ways in Chinese (and hence neutral).
My argument is that many of the words/phrases JI appears (in this sense) are positive in meaning, AND the other character/morpheme are often not obviously contributing to the good/bad dimension. So whether or not JI is neutral by etymology, the overall vote from the semantic network seem to favor a positive connotation, which warrants the translation to “opportunity”.
let me check … I didn’t use the word “but” above.
April 29th, 2007 at 10:41 pm e
see my earlier post: http://www.garyfeng.com/wordpress/2005/01/20/crisisdangeropportunity/
March 10th, 2009 at 3:48 pm e
I would have to take issue with your assessment that the character “機” (jī) is used mostly in “positive occasions.” In辭海 (cíhǎi), one of the most authoritative modern dictionaries of the Chinese language, “opportunity” (or more precisely, “critical moment”) is only one of the twelve definitions listed under the character. In the case of “危機” (wéijī), there are three pertinent definitions:
1. Danger (機：危殆) . In addition, since “危機” could also be written as “危幾” (pronounced wéijī, not wéijǐ), a reference to “幾” would be helpful: According to康熙字典 (kāngxī zìdiǎn), the court ordained dictionary of the Qing dynasty, “幾” too is defined as “danger” (幾，危也……幾，猶殆也) .
In this sense, “危機” (wéijī) or “危幾” simply means “danger,” period.
2. A minute sign (or the beginning) of things to come (both for “幾” and “機”) (幾：事物出現前或變化前的細微迹象……引申為事端……亦作機).
In this sense, “危機” or “危幾” means “the beginning of a dangerous development,” e.g., 危幾無兆 (wéijī wúzhào).
3. A triggering mechanism. (機：古代弩箭的發動裝置)
In this sense, “危機” means “a dangerous mechanism” or “a trap,” e.g., 危機四伏 (wéijī sìfú).
Clearly, all three definitions of “危機” point unequivocally to danger, to something worse and not better. There is really no “opportunity” in sight.
On the other hand, “crisis” is defined as “a vitally important or decisive stage in the progress of anything; a turning point; also, a state of affairs in which a decisive change for better or worse is imminent; now applied esp. to times of difficulty, insecurity, and suspense in politics or commerce.” (The Oxford English Dictionary) So, if one is to look desperately for some silver lining in a crisis, there it is, right in the definition of the English word itself. Just leave its Chinese and Japanese translation “危機” alone, less we run the risk of corrupting our younger generations’ understanding of classical Chinese prose and poetry.
May 16th, 2009 at 11:16 am e
I teach a course in conflict and the text, Wilmot & Hocker, uses the symbol in controversey here. I used the symbol on the final and one of my students found Victor Mair’s site and blasted me for not having properly researched the matter. Yikes! The symbol which I put on the course syllabus is this one: (Can’t get it to copy - it is a calligraphy by Yunn Pann) but there is an additional symbol in the center which he calls “the symbol for center.” I can’t get the symbol to copy but it looks like a circle on a stick. I’m wondering if that adds anything to the debate. He also uses a symbol that looks like a sideways infinity sign that he derives from opportunity with some sort of thought about a cocoon.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:12 pm e
John — I can’t imagine what this symbol looks like. any chance to find it on google image?