From: tgpedersen
Message: 19784
Date: 2003-03-13
> At 10:17:14 PM on Wednesday, March 12, 2003, Glen GordonThey call it folk etymology. Now also available vacuum-packed.
> wrote:
>
> > Chinese do this to foreign names all the time. Take a look
> > at the Mandarin word for "America" which is a phonetically
> > similar /meiguo/. While the word is in part taken from
> > English "America", it has been reanalysed according to
> > native elements such that the word literally means
> > "beautiful country" (/mei/ "beautiful" + /guo/ "country").
>
> As I understand it, it isn't a matter of reanalysis.
> Rather, a appropriately meaningful phrase is intentionally
> found that is phonetically similar to the foreign target.
>
> Brian