At least it wasn't a tattoo...
Dec. 11th, 2008 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranExtract from an apology from the journal Max Planck Research...
The cover of the most recent German-language edition of MaxPlanckForschung (3/2008) depicts a Chinese text which had been chosen by our editorial office in order to symbolically illustrate the magazine's focus on "China". Unfortunately, it has now transpired that this text contains inappropriate content of a suggestive nature.
Prior to publication, the editorial office had consulted a German sinologist for a translation of the relevant text. The sinologist concluded that the text in question depicted classical Chinese characters in a non-controversial context. To our sincere regret, however, it has now emerged that the text contains deeper levels of meaning, which are not immediately accessible to a non-native speaker.
As it turns out the "deeper levels of meaning" weren't particularly deep at all. It appears they ran an ad for a strip joint on their cover.
More details on Language Log.
The cover of the most recent German-language edition of MaxPlanckForschung (3/2008) depicts a Chinese text which had been chosen by our editorial office in order to symbolically illustrate the magazine's focus on "China". Unfortunately, it has now transpired that this text contains inappropriate content of a suggestive nature.
Prior to publication, the editorial office had consulted a German sinologist for a translation of the relevant text. The sinologist concluded that the text in question depicted classical Chinese characters in a non-controversial context. To our sincere regret, however, it has now emerged that the text contains deeper levels of meaning, which are not immediately accessible to a non-native speaker.
As it turns out the "deeper levels of meaning" weren't particularly deep at all. It appears they ran an ad for a strip joint on their cover.
More details on Language Log.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-11 09:59 am (UTC)At least he should be.