Today is February 29th, which makes it a leap year this 2008.
When I watched Channel 5, KTLA morning news, their anchor challenge question today is:
What's the official name for leap year? The answer is -- Intercalary year.
"Intercalary" is an adjective, which means being inserted, put in between.
The funny thing is when all the anchors had no clue at all about the answer, they tried to guess through all the answers. When they read the answer D. "intercalary", they said, "Mm... I don't know what this word means, must be a "Canadian" term...". Haha. That's a good excuse to get away with it...
This incident this morning also reminded me that there're so many "terms" between "Mainland" Mandarin Chinese and "Taiwanese" Mandarin Chinese. Languages are constantly evolving into different forms and meanings. And we also have to consider the regional variations. One dictionary (Liang'an Xiandai Hanyu Changyong cidian) I purchased about 2 years ago comes very handy when I have to look up words for its different written forms (traditional & simplified) and usages.
When I watched Channel 5, KTLA morning news, their anchor challenge question today is:
What's the official name for leap year? The answer is -- Intercalary year.
"Intercalary" is an adjective, which means being inserted, put in between.
The funny thing is when all the anchors had no clue at all about the answer, they tried to guess through all the answers. When they read the answer D. "intercalary", they said, "Mm... I don't know what this word means, must be a "Canadian" term...". Haha. That's a good excuse to get away with it...
This incident this morning also reminded me that there're so many "terms" between "Mainland" Mandarin Chinese and "Taiwanese" Mandarin Chinese. Languages are constantly evolving into different forms and meanings. And we also have to consider the regional variations. One dictionary (Liang'an Xiandai Hanyu Changyong cidian) I purchased about 2 years ago comes very handy when I have to look up words for its different written forms (traditional & simplified) and usages.
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