From online discussions to adverts², Chinese culture is full of puns. But the country’s print and broadcast watchdog has ruled that there is nothing funny about them.

从网上讨论到电视广告，中国文化充满双关语和俏皮话。但是国家广电监督部门却认为，这些俏皮话一点都不好笑。

It has banned wordplay on the grounds that it breaches³ the law on standard spoken and written Chinese, makes promoting cultural heritage harder and may mislead the public – especially children.

广电部门已经出台《通知》禁止了这类文字游戏，理由是它们违反了使用标准汉语口语和书面语的相关法规，与传承和弘扬中华优秀传统文化的精神相违背，并可能误导社会公众--尤其是小孩子们。

The casual alteration⁴ of idioms risks nothing less than “cultural and linguistic⁵ chaos”, it warns.

广电部门警告称，肆意乱改乱用可能导致文化断代和语言混乱。

Chinese is perfectly⁷ suited to puns because it has so many homophones. Popular sayings and even customs, as well as jokes, rely on wordplay.

中文有很多同音字，非常适合用来制造双关语。一些习俗与、流行语和笑话通常都会包含这种文字游戏。

But the order from the State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television says: “Radio and television authorities at all levels must tighten⁸ up their regulations and crack down on the irregular and inaccurate⁹ use of the Chinese language, especially the misuse¹⁰ of idioms.”

但是在国家广电总局发布的这份《通知》中称：“各级广播电视行政管理部门要加大监管力度，对存在不规范、不准确使用国家通用语言文字的现象，尤其是乱改乱用成语的问题，要进行严格处理。”

Programmes and adverts should strictly¹¹ comply with the standard spelling and use of characters, words, phrases and idioms – and avoid changing the characters, phrasing and meanings, the order said.

通知》还称，各类广播电视节目和广告应严格按照规范写法和标准含义使用国家通用语言文字的字、词、短语、成语等，不得随意更换文字、变动结构或曲解内涵。

“Idioms are one of the great features of the Chinese language and contain profound cultural heritage and historical resources and great aesthetic¹², ideological¹³ and moral values,” it added.“

成语是汉语言文化的一大特色，承载着深厚的人文内涵，蕴藏着丰富的历史资源、美学资源、思想资源和道德资源。”

“That’s the most ridiculous part of this: [wordplay] is so much part and parcel of Chinese heritage,” said David Moser, academic director for CET Chinese studies at Beijing Capital Normal University.

北京首都师范大学的汉语研究专家戴维·莫泽说：“这有点可笑，因为（文字游戏）恰恰是中华传统的一部分。”

When couples marry, people will give them dates and peanuts – a reference to the wish Zaosheng guizi or “May you soon give birth to a son”. The word for dates is also zao and peanuts are huasheng.

男女新婚时，人们会给新人红枣和花生，其寓意是“早生贵子”。

The notice cites complaints from viewers, but the examples it gives appear utterly¹⁴ innocuous. In a tourism promotion¹⁵ campaign, tweaking the characters used in the phrase jin shan jin mei – perfection – has turned it into a slogan translated as “Shanxi, a land of splendours”. In another case, replacing a single character in ke bu rong huan has turned “brook¹⁶ no delay” into “coughing must not linger” for a medicine advert¹.

通知》中提到一些观众抱怨文字的不规范使用，但其提供的例子似乎并未造成什么害处，例如陕西的旅游宣传语将“尽善尽美”改成了“晋善晋美”。另一个例子中，一款咳嗽药广告把“刻不容缓”改成了“咳不容缓”。

“It could just be a small group of people, or even one person, who are conservative, humourless, priggish and arbitrarily purist, so that everyone has to fall in line,” said Moser.

莫泽说：“也许本来只是一小部分语言洁癖者因为过于保守、缺少幽默感、自以为是而否定这种行为，但结果却是每个人都必须遵守这样的规定。”