Jason Pym :: Words and Pictures

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  • Favourite books

    A bookshop in Kunming (大象) is asking various authors to list their favourite books. here’s my sister’s (a botanist) and my dad’s (a computer programmer), and mine:

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    March 31, 2025

  • Why do animal characters stand on their tails? [hanzi 01]

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    March 30, 2025
    bamboo, Chinese characters, hanzi, learning Chinese, Mandarin, oracle bone script, study Chinese

  • Feed by by M.T. Anderson [book review]

    The Feed is embedded wetware which lets you access anything online, anytime. And your function, having been granted this incredible gift, is to consume.

    ‘The other was a good sale at Weatherbee & Crotch, which, by this time, I had probably missed. It was too bad, because I would have like to have been able to take the opportunity to check out these great bargains, for example, they had a trim-shirt with side pockets that I thought I probably would have bought, except it only came in sand, persimmon, and vetch.’

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    March 30, 2025
    dystopia, humour, social media

  • The black sheep = A bad horse 害群之马 [Chinese Idioms 2]

    hài qún zhī mǎ

    害群之马

    lit. a horse that brings trouble to its herd
    fig. troublemaker, rotten apple, black sheep

    字面:危害马群的劣马。
    比喻:危害社会或集体的人。

    “害群之马” means the horse that harms the herd, a horse whose makes the all the other horses unhappy. So, “害群之马” means someone who causes trouble for or brings shame on the group.

    For example: “This kid is a right tearaway – he’s a real ‘害群之马’!”

    In English, someone who causes their family embarrassment or shame is called a “black sheep”. For example, “He’s such a troublemaker! He’s the black sheep of the family.”

    有一群马在原野间自在地休息着,但其中有一匹马总是捣乱,搞得大家都不开心,这匹马,就是他们之中的“害群之马”: 这个成语指那些在群体里捣乱、破坏大家团结的人。

    在英语里也有类似的说法,那些让家庭或群体蒙羞的人,就被叫做“黑.”,“black sheep” 例如,“He is the black sheep of the family”。

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    March 29, 2025
    black, horse, idiom, sheep, 中文, 成语, 羊, 马

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