chopstick

Chopsticks are shaped pairs of equal-length sticks. They are smoothed and frequently tapered and are commonly made of bamboo, plastic, wood, or stainless steel. They are less commonly made from titanium, gold, silver, porcelain, jade, or ivory.

Chopsticks are held in the dominant hand, between the thumb and fingers, and used to pick up pieces of food. To use them, the lower chopstick is stationary, and rests at the base of the thumb, and between the ring finger and middle finger. The second chopstick is held like a pencil, using the tips of the thumb, index finger, and middle finger, and it is moved while eating, to pull food into the grasp of the chopsticks. Chopsticks, when not in use, are placed either to the right or below one's plate in a Chinese table setting.

Customs and etiquette in Chinese dining

• When eating rice from a bowl, it is normal to hold the rice bowl up to one's mouth and use chopsticks to push or shovel the rice directly into the mouth.
• It is acceptable to transfer food to closely related people (e.g. grandparents, parents, spouse, children, or significant others) if they are having difficulty picking up the food. Also it is a sign of respect to pass food to the elderly first before the dinner starts. Often, family members will transfer a choice piece of food from a dish to a relative's bowl as a sign of caring. A variation of this is to transfer the food whilst using one's own bowl as a support, underneath the food and chopsticks to keep food from falling or dripping, then transferring from there to a relative's bowl.
• It is poor etiquette to tap chopsticks on the edge of one's bowl; beggars make this sort of noise to attract attention.
• Holding chopsticks incorrectly will reflect badly on a child's parents, who have the responsibility of teaching their children.
• It is impolite to spear food with a chopstick. Anything too difficult to be handled with chopsticks is traditionally eaten with a spoon.
• It is considered poor etiquette to point rested chopsticks towards others seated at the table.
• Chopsticks should not be left vertically stuck into a bowl of rice because it resembles the ritual of incense-burning that symbolizes "feeding" the dead and death in general.
• Traditionally, everyone would use their own chopsticks to take food from the dishes to their own bowl, or to pass food from the dishes to the elders' or guests' bowls. Today usually only in restaurants or gatherings with non-family guests present, serving chopsticks (公筷, "community-use chopsticks") are used. These are used to take food directly from serving dishes; they are returned to the dishes after one has served oneself. However some families have also adopted this practice at private meals.
• When seated for a meal, it is common custom to allow elders to take up their chopsticks before anyone else.
• Chopsticks should not be used upside-down; it is considered acceptable to use them inverted to stir or transfer the food from another plate (which the person does not intend to consume completely). This method is used only if there are no serving chopsticks.
• One should not "dig" or "search" through food for something in particular. This is sometimes known as "digging one's grave" or "grave-digging" and is extremely poor form.
• Resting chopsticks at the top of the bowl means "I've finished". Resting chopsticks on the side of one's bowl or on a chopstick stand signifies one is merely taking a break from eating.
• When taking food from a communal serving dish, one's chopsticks should not pass over someone else's chopsticks, hand, or arm; the diner should either take food to the side or wait.
• When taking food from a communal serving dish, it is done with the palm uppermost, it is considered rude to show one's knuckles to dining companions.

Chopsticks were invented in ancient China before the Shang dynasty (1766–1122 BCE) and most likely much earlier prior to establishment of the Xia dynasty sometime around 9000 years ago. The earliest evidence were six chopsticks, made of bronze, 26 cm (10 inches) long and 1.1 to 1.3 cm (0.43 to 0.51 inches) wide, excavated from the Ruins of Yin near Anyang (Henan) and dated roughly to 1200 BCE; those were supposed to be used for cooking. The earliest known extant textual reference to the use of chopsticks comes from the Han Feizi, a philosophical text written by Han Fei (c. 280–233 BCE) in the 3rd century BCE.

The first chopsticks were probably used for cooking, stirring the fire, serving or seizing bits of food, and not as eating utensils. Chopsticks began to be used as eating utensils during the Han dynasty. Chopsticks were considered more lacquerware[漆器]-friendly than other sharp eating utensils. They then acquired the name kuaizi and the present shape during the Ming dynasty.

In ancient written Chinese, the character for chopsticks was zhu (箸). Although it may have been widely used in ancient spoken Chinese, its use was eventually replaced by the pronunciation for the character kuài (快), meaning "quick". For written semantic differentiation between the "fast" (快) versus "chopsticks", a new character was created for "chopsticks" (筷) by adding the "bamboo" (竹) radical (⺮) to it. radical在数学里是“根号; 根数; 根式”的意思，在化学里是“基; 根; 原子团”的意思。Language: Late Latin; Origin: radicalis, from Latin radix 'root'.

Use of the chopsticks later spread to other countries either through cultural influence or through Chinese immigrant communities.

In Japanese, chopsticks are called hashi (箸). They are also known as otemoto (おてもと), a phrase commonly printed on the wrappers of disposable chopsticks. Te means hand and moto means the area under or around something. The preceding o is used for politeness. 奥特曼是Ultraman.

In Korean, 저 (箸, jeo) is used in the compound jeotgarak (Hangul: 젓가락 ), which is composed of jeo "chopsticks" and garak "stick". Jeo cannot be used alone, but can be found in other compounds such as sujeo (Hangul: 수저 ), meaning "spoon and chopsticks".

The English word "chopstick" may have derived from Chinese Pidgin English, in which "chop chop" meant "quickly". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest published use of the word is in the 1699 book Voyages and Descriptions by William Dampier: "they are called by the English seamen Chopsticks".

Pidgin is a simple form of a language which speakers of a different language use to communicate. Pidgin is not anyone's first language.

上海的租界建立以后，原开设在广州、香港、澳门、南洋等地的洋行，以及在本土的外国公司纷纷转迁上海或在上海设立分支机构。由于中西语言上的隔阂，一些原在洋行任职、粗通英语的广东籍买办也随着洋行进入上海充当外国人翻译或华洋贸易的中介人。同时，上海的本土及其他籍商人为了能与外商直接往来跻身上流社会，开始学习简单的英语会话。从此，上海地区开始流行带有浓重乡音而又不遵照英语语法的中国英语，即“洋泾浜英语”。姚公鹤先生在《上海闲话》一书中是这样对洋泾浜英语下定义的：“洋泾浜话者，用英文之音，而以中国文法出之也（姚，P18）。”相传，从事此业者有三十六人，名曰“露天通事”，他们大多为无业泼皮、马夫之流。当遇到外国水手或初到上海的洋商外出购物时，他们就自荐做外国人的向导，从中渔利。其实“露天通事”素以无赖著名，究竟是否只有三十六人，并无正史为证。只不过像郑子明、范高头等著名人士有三十六人，而事实上其他无名泼皮者甚众乃至无法统计。

The most widespread use of disposable chopsticks is in Japan, where around a total of 24 billion pairs are used each year, which is equivalent to almost 200 pairs per person yearly. In April 2006, the People's Republic of China imposed a five percent tax on disposable chopsticks to reduce waste of natural resources by overconsumption. American manufacturers have begun exporting American-made chopsticks to China.

六级/考研单词: seldom, bamboo, silver, porcelain, ivory, thumb, fingerprint, grasp, etiquette, dine, norm, spouse, elder, supper, underneath, drip, tap, beg, spear, spoon, vertical, resemble, ritual, oneself, invert, consume, dig, grave, signify, mere, palm, rude, companion, dynasty, bronze, ruin, probable, pronounce, differentiate, versus, radical, immigrate, precede, compound, compose, derive, chop, accord, dictionary, voyage, billion, equivalent, manufacture, import