Written Pyramids

"The largely Chinese crowd responded with a roar, waving oversized flags and shouting “jia you,” a cheer meaning “add oil.”"

"Huh," I thought, "that's weird, why would the Times not explain why the Chinese would cheer 'add oil.'" At an unspecified time the newspaper resolved the problem by fixing the text without issuing a correction. The article now reads:

"The largely Chinese crowd responded with a roar, waving oversized flags and shouting “Jia you,” a cheer meaning “Come on!”"

Ah ha. That makes sense, if only readers knew that it was corrected, and more curiously, how that mistranslation got in there. Actually is seems to be a literal translation that was then fixed to make sense. Either way, it's strange.

Photo of a Chinese restaurant via AdFreak. It has nothing to do with diving, but it amazing in its own right