Named Haolong Dongi.
Haolong (lit. 'spiny dragon') is an extinct genus of hadrosauroid ornithopod dinosaur known from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian age) Yixian Formation of Liaoning, China. The genus contains a single species, Haolong dongi, known from a nearly complete, articulated skeleton with preserved integumentary structures.
The generic name, Haolong, comes from Mandarin Chinese and translates to "spiny dragon," in reference to its integumentary structures. The specific name, dongi, honors Dong Zhiming, a prominent Chinese paleontologist.
Move over Long Duck Dong, someone actually came up with an even more ridiculous name.
Comments
Lung
Is the Cantonese for dragon. A Hong Kong district is known as Gau Lung, Nine Dragons, which has been corrupted to Kowloon. The Mandarin for your dinosaur could be quite rude translated into Cantonese.
Dragon in Cantonese
To my hearing, dragon was always more like 'lown' where the 'own' part is not pronounced like 'town' but as if you 'own' something.
I find the pronunciation charts always a bit off to native (or my family's regional pronunciation?) unfortunately. As far as I know, in NYC's Chinatown, my pronunciation was pretty standard and NYC Chinatown is among the oldest Chinatowns in the US outside of SF.
And as far as how nine is pronounced to my ears it always seem more like 'gul' as in Gul Dukat in the Deep Space Nine Star Trek series though not an exact match or possibly gull, the bird.
Cantonese has 6 fundamental sound families vs 4 for Mandarin so it is actually harder to learn than Mandarin. I cheated by being born into a
Chinese family of course.
Thanks for the insight
My wife was Chinese. We studied pictograms a bit, but never really learned to speak either dialect.
OTOH, I have a wonderful memory of sharing Dim Sum in San Francisco with her mother and grandmother! Grandmother was born in Canton and spoke Cantonese. Her mother translated for us.
And the food was great!
Gillian Cairns
I can confirm Joanne's comment
My mother grew up in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong but she was born in Taishan Province, which is 150 miles southwest. They pronounce Kowloon as "Gow-loong." It gets its name from the eight mountains/peaks surrounding the area and the Emperor Bing of the Song Dynasty (1272–1279), who was considered the ninth dragon.
Proper Hong Kong Cantonese speakers regard Taishanese speakers as country bumpkins, even though at least 1/3 of the population has roots in Taishan Province. But, then again, Mandarin is the official dialect of China so...Side note: most of the Chinese immigrants that came to the U.S. and Canada are from the Taishan Province diaspora that started in the late 19th century. Up until the 1960s & 70s, the vast majority of Chinese Americans and Canadians spoke Taishanese.
I'm a mutt myself. My father was Chinese/Italian, born and raised in Los Angeles.
Sammy
My nephew
My nephew's grandparents were born in a rural village in or near Taishan province and his mother and aunts spoke the village dialect as well as Hong Kong Cantonese and fluent English. Hearing Cantonese is always a strange sensation to me, it sounds like Vietnamese in its tones but none of the words, or very few are the same. Vietnamese has a lot of Cantonese and a few Mandarin loan words.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Taishan
Well, my dad was considered a country bumpkin though he spoke proper Cantonese.
There is always City dwellers who turn their noses up at rustics in China. Yes, their pronunciation can get quite hard to understand. People who live in the farm areas of Blighty get a similar prejudice.
I really wasn’t expecting……
The serious responses I received to this post - but knowing the folks here I should have been.
For those of you haven’t seen it, take the time to watch John Hughes “brat pack” coming of age classic Sixteen Candles and you will understand the “Long Duck Dong” comment. It is the name of one of the characters in the movie, and hence my reference to it in the original post.
The naming of the dinosaur fossil is entirely understandable, and the method used is quite common. My original comment was referencing the different meanings and interpretations of words around the world. Definitely a bit sophomoric, but I am relatively sure that this poor dinosaur will become the basis of plenty of jokes - at least in the US.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus