Some time ago, Chinese linguist and poet Yuen Ren Chao came up with a linguistic curiosity in the form of the poem called “Shi Shi Shi Shi Shi” in romanized form. In Mandarin, of course, it does kind of make sence, but only if you read it. Anyone, who hears it, will have hard time understanding what the hell is going on there.
Without further ado, here is the thing in Mandarin, transcription and the translation:
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Translation:
- « Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den »
- In a stone den was a poet Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten.
- He often went to the market to look for lions.
- At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
- At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
- He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
- He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
- The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
- After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
- When he ate, he realized that those ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
- Try to explain this matter.
Great stuff! Anyone, who cares about details on the work can find more initial info in wikipedia.
