I don’t usually repost from Language Log, but this astonished me to such an extent that I can’t resist: this post shows an example of a Chinese signboard in which ’r represents Mr., and in the comments Jonathan Smith links to his comment about the phenomenon in a thread from 2017:
I was suspicious of this [the idea that ’s after a name on a Chinese Starbucks cup represented a genitive] (because totally superfluous) and indeed internet research indicates that in Chinese Starbucks (e.g.) “李’r” = Mr. Li and “李’s” = Mrs. Li. It is not hard to find pictures of X’r / X’R cups online. So it provides real information. Perhaps this makes the biscriptalism even weirder though
As Eidolon then points out:
With these additional examples, Jonathan Smith’s explanation begins to make more sense to me. The reason being, ’s adds no extra semantic value to the cup when combined with a Chinese surname – the barista should be able to tell that the cup belongs to a Chinese person of that surname. But the ’r and ’s make a decisive difference, since when calling out the customer upon the completion of his or her drink, it is customary in Chinese etiquette to avoid personal names and to instead append a gendered honorific: 先生, 女士, etc. This would then require the barista to know whether the customer is male or female, necessitating the use of ’r or ’s. Of course, the choice of the English abbreviation is still for the sake of time and effort.
Both the imported symbols and the imported gender differentiation are of great linguistic interest.
In addition to the practical aspects, I think this is brilliant marketing. Starbucks being a western company, the system emphasizes the company’s international nature and provides a small touch of western personalization (writing names on cups with alphabetic symbols added).
But is it Starbucks marketing or a spontaneous development by baristas for their own convenience?
“Spontaneous marketing!” The new next best thing. Someone needs to write a book on this.
…Is this the first post title containing non-Latin script in LH history?
(I’d have expected some Cyrillic at least, but Commented-On Posts doesn’t seem to have any.)
test, please delete if I don’t do it first
Looks like this post, like previous posts with non-English/non-ASCII characters in the URL, is constantly swallowing comments. I wonder if any of mine go through…