Today's surreal incident:

[camwyn]

After discussing the pronunciation of 'ren' in Mandarin at some length with my co-worker Na (the teacher pronounced the initial sound several different ways on Wednesday, ranging from 'dzhen' to 'zhjen' to 'jzen' and points in between, while I sat in the back and wanted to strangle the man next to me who kept loudly saying 'ren'), I looked up at the traffic outside my window.

Big old 18 wheeler with 'GENESIS EXPRESS' painted on the side went by, headed along 46 West.
And just now, a van from National Dust Control passed by, headed east.

If I see a truck with anything on it about either ashes or babies in the next three minutes... well, I'm just gonna shake my head and sign the rest of the day over to the Angel of Surrealism and leave it at that.

Comments

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Proper pinyin for it is "ren2". Anything else is a regional accent.

[camwyn]

Then I can ignore the woman from Shanghai who looked at the ideogram and very cheerfully said 'len!'?

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. It's like regional French accents seem to have no relation to Parisian speech, which is the general way they teach French in school. The way real people speak isn't always the "proper" way to speak.