# VCR



## yuechu

Hello/大家好，

I sometimes hear the word "VCR" being used in Chinese, but it seems to have a different meaning. By metonymy, is this word used to refer to "video clips" in Chinese? I have heard it used in "非常勿扰" before.
Thanks/谢谢！


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## Ghabi

Hi Baosheng! I think you're right. Some people seem to use VCR to mean 視頻.


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## Razzle Storm

Ghabi's meaning is the meaning I hear most. I also hear DVD occasionally used in a similar way, like 

我们看大屏幕的DVD了解一下 (said of a short clip on a talk show). 

It's interesting how these abbreviations take on their own meaning when they cross languages. Another example that comes to mind is OK, which can be used to indicate completion of a task, usually with 了 added after.


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## easychen

The concern I have is : Any chance _vcr_ might be a jargon in show biz in English-speaking country to mean 视频（video clips)?


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## yuechu

@easychen
Not to my knowledge, no. I should have included the original English meaning of VCR in my original post: videocassette recorder. Many people in North America knew these by the two most famous brands/formats: VHS and Beta(max). (I'm assuming it was similar for other countries, but am not sure!)

I think that VCR to refer to 视频/video clips is only used in China (and maybe other Chinese-speaking regions too.. ?).

Thank you, everyone, for your replies!


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## easychen

Hi, baosheng

I've also noticed their using vcr in 非诚勿扰 before. And the question I asked above was promted by the fact that many of the girls on the stage have lived and studied a long time in some of the English-speaking countries, and should have known better than to make such a stupid mistake.

Now I must wonder how they would have made out in those countries.


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## SuperXW

I believe this mistake has been taken for granted...since most people never knew what it means and just used it to mean "video clips"...It has become a special usage now...


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## xiaolijie

When a foreign word is imported into another language (Chinese in this case), the meaning can change and if the new meaning is accepted and used, then _*the new meaning is the correct one in Chinese*_, and not the original meaning. There should be plenty of examples similar to this.


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## easychen

Hi xiaolije,

An English word can never be imported into Chinese in it's original form (like _vcr _), we just transform it(_vcr _in this case) to Chinese characters (like 盒式录像机）。

Admittedly, we Chinese sometimes directly quote English words in our conversations, like 看篮球还是看NBA的过瘾. But we don't think NBA is Chinese，it's still an English acronym. 

For Chinese people who understand English, vcr strictly means video cassette recorder (not video clips), just as it means to native English-speakers. For Chinese people who don't understand English, vcr means merely three Latin letters:v, c, r, with an exception of those ignoramuses in 非诚勿扰.


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## Youngfun

Baidu Baike 'recognizes' VCR as 中式英语 (Chinglish) 
It's fun seeing that most of occurencies of VCR talk about that reality _fake_ show 非诚勿扰. It must be that programme that widespread this usage of VCR.

What's bad, is that serious news are also starting to use VCR with this meaning.

IMHO I still think we shouldn't encourage Chinese learners to use it...


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## SuperXW

怎么听怎么土啊……0.0 拿个过时的东西出来假装洋气，其实用错了还不知道……还VCR，你叫个BD也好啊……


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## Lucia_zwl

SuperXW said:


> I believe this mistake has been taken for granted...since most people never knew what it means and just used it to mean "video clips"...It has become a special usage now...


Agree... There are many people taking everything for granted without reasoning, and sometimes I'm one of them...
Another funny example is 'PK'... 貌似是从脑残的“超女”来的~


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## OneStroke

SuperXW said:


> 怎么听怎么土啊……0.0 拿个过时的东西出来假装洋气，其实用错了还不知道……还VCR，你叫个BD也好啊……



讚! 

其實VCR=video clips怎樣也講不同。英語對漢語已經侵蝕夠了，現在還來這些不倫不類的英語，連報紙也用上了，很快，正統的語言就嗚呼哀哉啦！


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## Youngfun

Lucia_zwl said:


> Another funny example is 'PK'... 貌似是从脑残的“超女”来的~


This is off topic, but actually PK means "players kill", and comes from online MMORPG games such as 传奇 and World of Warcraft.
MMORPGs are far more popular in China (and Starcraft in Korea) than in the West.
Now it means "to challenge"...


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