When you pay the bill in a restaurant, you used to say "check out", but now the popular saying is "mɑi single". Written in Chinese characters, there are two: "pay the bill" and "pay the bill". Which one is right? We have seen some discussion articles in newspapers and magazines, and most of them affirm the writing form of "paying the bill" and think that "paying the bill" is a mistake. For example, Yangcheng Evening News published an article entitled "Pay the bill" and "Pay the bill" on August 15, 2002, which means that "paying the bill" is a mistake. Later, the newspaper published an article entitled "Pay the bill again", which supplemented some details of the previous article and made a detailed textual research on the origin of the word "pay the bill" in Cantonese dialect. We deeply feel that the author's understanding of Cantonese is profound and authentic. Now its main points are as follows
"Pay the bill" is a Cantonese dialect with a long history. Before liberation or in the 1950s, restaurants in the Pearl River Delta adopted the practice of eating first and then paying. The dishes used in teahouses and restaurants are classified to show the price of food. After the customer finished eating, he shouted, "Pay the bill!" This is the abbreviation of "bill" and "bill". When the waiter comes over, he first stacks all kinds of dishes representing different prices (that is, "burying", which means "gathering" in Cantonese), then counts the quantity of each kind separately, calculates the total consumption amount, writes it with a pen on a special small bill (bill), and the customer pays the bill at the service desk. Occasionally, criminals use various tricks to hide people's eyes and ears and escape without paying. The jargon of the catering industry is called "walking alone".
Finally, the author of the article said that once the etymology of "paying the bill" and the whole operation process of "paying the bill" and "invoicing" are understood, the word "paying the bill" will probably not be misused again. But at present, the fact is just the opposite. Not only has the use of "paying the bill" not stopped, but the utilization rate has also greatly exceeded the trend of "paying the bill". Many people only know "paying the bill" and don't know "paying the bill".
In recent years, with the economic advantages of Guangdong and Hong Kong, Cantonese dialects have entered Mandarin in large numbers. Because the pronunciation of "burying" and "buying" in Cantonese is similar, the word "paying the bill" is often written as "paying the bill" after going north. It seems that "paying the bill" is more in line with the "taste" of northerners than "paying the bill", and it is easier to understand-eating in restaurants is not just "buying"! This situation is not without precedent. "done" in Cantonese has become "done" in Mandarin. We think this change is understandable. As a national lingua franca, Putonghua must take into account the use and acceptance habits of the vast majority of people. As far as Chinese speakers are concerned, there are certainly many people who know the dialect origin of "paying the bill" and "getting it right". Therefore, when people use these dialect words, they often write with homophones or pictophonetic words with related meanings in Mandarin according to their pronunciation, thus creating a new writing form that is more in line with the habits of Mandarin and easy for ordinary people to understand on the basis of the original words. Therefore, in our language, the same dialect has two different forms: the original form and the modified form. "Pay the bill" and "pay the bill" are like this.
In fact, some newly published dictionaries have affirmed the form of the word "pay the bill", such as Cool Language 2000 (edited by Qian Nairong, Shanghai Education Press, 200 1 edition), Applied Chinese Dictionary (Commercial Press, 2000 edition) and Xinhua Dictionary of New Words (Commercial Press, 2003) Modern Chinese Dictionary (2002 supplementary edition) contains new words of these two words in the appendix. It takes "paying the bill" as the main entry and "paying the bill" as the adverb, which may be considered from the etymological point of view. As far as the current usage is concerned, the usage rate of "paying the bill" has surpassed that of "paying the bill". Please see the following online search results (the search time is April 2005 18, and the search range of People's Daily is June 2005 1995 65438+ 10/-April.
When searching, we specially selected Yangcheng Evening News and Nanfang Daily published in Cantonese as reference indicators. The results show that even in Cantonese dialect areas, the usage rate of "paying the bill" is higher than that of "paying the bill". Therefore, we think it seems better to take "paying the bill" as the main entry in the dictionary, just like the Applied Chinese Dictionary. According to the principle of universality defined in the Sorting Table of the First Batch of Variant Words, if you sort out this pair of variant words in the future, you will probably take "pay the bill" as the positive word.
In the process of collecting newspaper examples, we also found a noteworthy phenomenon, that is, "paying the bill" in Cantonese refers to checking out and paying after eating in the library, but after entering Mandarin, the use scope of "paying the bill" and "paying the bill" has obviously expanded, which has gone far beyond the use context of paying after eating. Look at this example:
1. Waiters in different clothes are responsible for different jobs, some just pay the bill and some just serve food. (Global Times, April 25, 2003)
However, as the relationship entered a stable period, Mr. Li's worries increased for the simple reason that more than 90% of the appointments were paid by Mr. Li. (Life Times, February 2003 18)
3. Who should "pay" the water fee for public toilets? Relevant departments are negotiating to solve this matter. (People's Daily, June 5438+February 65438+April 2004)
Only when people's wallets are generally bulging and have the ability to "pay the bill" for the elegant environment and standardized packaging of supermarkets, the farmers' market will be eliminated. (People's Daily, June 5438, 2005+10/October 5)
They also have reason to ask, who should "pay" for the losses caused by policy changes? (China Youth Daily, April 9, 2003)
In the example 1, "paying the bill" is the job of the waiter, pointing to the guest to collect money. In Example 2, "paying the bill" refers to paying the amount of consumption, but the occasion is obviously not limited to restaurants, because men and women don't just go to restaurants for dates. Both cases 3 and 4 are related to paying with money. But the fifth case has nothing to do with the meaning of "payment" and "payment with money". Example 5 requires to bear the losses caused by the change of college entrance examination policy to candidates registered in different places (the original sentence has this sentence), which is obviously not based on economy.