Cho Chang is Klingon?

I was just thinking recently... the translators of the Chinese versions of Harry Potter assume that Cho Chang is Chinese and tried to find Chinese characters representing her name; they came up with 張秋 Zhang1 Qiu1, using the common Chinese family name Zhang1, which is also often written Chang in English (this is the Wade-Giles spelling of the name). Its pronunciation probably sounds more like "Jang" to English ears than "Chang" (I believe the sound is voiceless but unaspirated).

So if "jang" is a possible match, perhaps her original name was not, in fact, Qiu Zhang but rather chojang? That would be Klingon for "You answer me". Coincidence? I think not!

What can stand and go at the same time?

( A German play on words )

Walkways

As I went to the supermarket just now, I noticed some paths that had been formed by people walking over certain areas of grass over and over until no grass grew there any more… there was not only one path but several, close together, depending on where certain people had chosen to cross that particular bit, I suppose.

It reminded me of what I had read about a university that had been newly created; according to the story, the architect designed the campus with its buildings but designed no roads or footpaths on the campus. Instead, he simply had grass sown in between all the buildings.

After a year, the students had trodden down certain areas and created footpaths themselves; at that point, he had those paths made permanent by re-creating them with concrete or something. In this way, the architect said, the footpaths would be not those some architect thought were the most suitable for connecting the buildings, but the most useful by the "democratic vote" of the many students who had laid down the routes.