Talk:PPT

PPT, WTO, WHO, etc.

@Justinrleung This is a bottomless pit. These are not Chinese; it is English mixed into Chinese writing or speech for ease of communication, and there is no usage difference in English too - one can easily find thousands of attestations of PPT ([1][2][3][4]). It happens very often, especially in academia and in overseas Chinese speech. Here are three examples of books using English abbreviations etc. in Chinese text en masse in science: [5]. The English words in those passages are obviously not Chinese- there is no point to include them as Chinese entries on Wiktionary, as with PPT, WTO, WHO, etc. Wyang (talk) 11:57, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

@Wyang, Atitarev, Tooironic: I think PPT is a different case. AFAIK, PPT is rarely used in speech in English to refer to “PowerPoint”, but in Mandarin, I've heard it used in speech to refer to “PowerPoint”. Here are some videos to back up its use in speech in Mandarin ([6][7][8]). I would consider it non-native to hear PPT used as “PowerPoint” in English speech. Just judging by the authors' names, the author of the first attestation (Yuhong Jiang) pointed out is clearly Chinese, and the third attestation (Bharath Gopalan) was written by an Indian. The second attestation did not use PPT before introducing the abbreviation as “PowerPoint (PPT)”. If it's used in English, I think there should be an English entry for this. In addition, the Wikipedia article on PPT says that it refers to the file format and nothing about a PowerPoint presentation. I'll bring I've brought this to WT:TR to see what other native English speakers think.

As for the other ones, like WTO and WHO, I was a bit hesitant about them, so I've initially put RFV for them. Those could probably be deleted, especially because there's 世貿 and 世衛. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:11, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

"a PPT" sounds fairly natural to me - I don't really find that there is a big difference between the usages in English and Chinese, and the English uses are easily attested. There may be a tendency for this to be used by non-native English speakers, but a Usage notes should suffice. That is to be expected though, since PowerPoint is much more difficult to pronounce. Wyang (talk) 01:54, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

@Wyang: It could be attested in English texts, but it doesn't mean it's used in speech. Et cetera is almost always written as etc., but does that mean people say /iː tiː siː/ instead of /ˌɛt ˈsɛt(ə)ɹə/? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 03:46, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

• I wouldn't say it's a bottomless pit. A lot of paper dictionaries include these kind of terms. I don't see the harm in keeping them, especially when there is no equivalent used in hanzi. (Or if there is, one that is rarely used.) ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:59, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

  @Tooironic: Which paper dictionaries in particular? AFAIK, WHO and WTO have pretty common hanzi equivalents.

  As for PPT, I think 簡報／简报 (jiǎnbào) (or whatever the term is) might be less common, but I can't be sure. @Hongthay, Kc kennylau, any thoughts on this, particularly on how frequently PPT is used and if PPT should be included for Chinese? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 03:46, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

  I can't think of a specific title, but pick up any decent-sized Chinese paper dictionary and it'll have a section dedicated to common abbreviations used in official Chinese texts. WHO and WTO would definitely be in there - not sure about PPT. However in my school in Xiamen students and teachers only use PPT - no one uses 簡報 (I asked about it). ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:26, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

  It is found in Chinese dictionaries in an appendix, but here it is treated as a main entry - which I don't think we should. The Chinese equivalent for PPT is 幻燈片／幻灯片 (huàndēngpiàn), and when I was in high school I feel that was more commonly used than PPT. Wyang (talk) 12:21, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

  @Wyang: It's possible that things have changed since your high school days, or there might be regional differences. @Tooironic, could you check if 幻燈片／幻灯片 (huàndēngpiàn) is used? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 02:54, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

  My classmates just call them PPT. 幻燈片, 簡報 and 演示文稿 are the official terms but you won't hear anyone call them that at unis in China. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

  Maybe, although "幻灯片的" (6980, almost all referring to PowerPoint) gets way more results than "PPT的" (541) on Google Books. At any rate, there is no reason to single out PPT as being worthy of having a Chinese entry, among the millions of other English terms that are mixed into Chinese speech. I wouldn't mind having an appendix listing some of the English words in Chinese, including PPT, WHO, etc., though. Wyang (talk) 06:45, 27 March 2017 (UTC)