Shanghai has banned the use of Internet jargon such as "Dinosaurs", which refers to unattractive women, or "PK", short for 'player kill' meaning 'competitor', in its official documents, news broadcasts and teaching materials.

 

Wang Yaoxi, a member of the Shanghai Committee of the Municipal People's Congress, said that the use of such jargon is acceptable in periodicals, books, video and electronic publications.

 

"But these words should not be used in teaching materials, which are role models for the standard use of language, and news broadcasting," Wang said.

 

New Chinese jargon is often translated from English using a similar sounding Chinese character with often ridiculous results. For instance, the new Chinese word for 'fan', as in fanatic, is "fen si", which actually means vermicelli.

 

The Shanghai education administration department has been authorized to enforce the law by monitoring the media on the use of language, and the department has to submit regular reports.

 

Zhu Lei, a Chinese language worker in Shanghai said that there is no need to exclude all new words appearing on the Internet. Some Internet jargon is now regularly used in everyday situations. More important, they are a product of information technology.

 

Initial Internet user response to the ban includes comments that the new regulation might suffocate innovation on the Internet.

 

Professor Li Baijian of the Shanghai University said that Chinese words for Internet terms such as "download", "netlink" and "homepage" are now widely accepted as the norm.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 2, 2006)