Fergie's Tech Blog

Shanghai bans Chinese Internet slang

An AP newswire article, via The Globe and Mail, reports that:

So long, "MM," "PK," and "konglong."

The language police in Shanghai, China's largest city, plan to ban those and other Chinese Internet slang terms from classrooms, official documents, and publications produced in the city, newspapers reported Friday.

"On the Web, Internet slang is convenient and satisfying, but the mainstream media have a responsibility to guide proper and legal language usage," the Shanghai Morning Post quoted city official Xia Xiurong as saying.

Internet chat and instant messaging are hugely popular with China's increasingly computer-literate youth, who employ an ad-hoc vocabulary of invented, abbreviated and borrowed terms such as "MM," meaning girl, "PK," or player killer, for one's competitor, "konglong" or dinosaur for an unattractive woman.

posted by Fergie @ 9/23/2005 08:36:00 AM