The urban dictionary gives a citation from 2019 of huperchild. Woperchild is cited from 2005.
I wish it to be known that huperchild was invented by Lambert Meertens back in 1986 at the CWI. Unfortunately we did not think to publish this on the incipient Internet (still lots of Usenet, UUCP and a few ARPANET nodes) and stake the claim.
Lambert was musing about the politically correct way of saying human. So we have the progression:
human →huperson → huperchild
Similarly for woperchild:
woman →woperson → woperchild
Today I passed a council artist creating pre-distorted paintings on the ground that when viewed from the correct spot displays the correct proportions. Very clever.
These were for the Snow Festival at Greenwood Plaza, North Sydney.
I wondered if they could be called murals in light of the derivation of that word. Indeed ground mural is the common term. A painting on any flat surface is regarded as a mural now. Pavimental has zero chance of becoming accepted, too late for that.
Today an amusing incident popped into my mind.
Several years ago I was working as a programmer in a university lab. One day around lunchtime one of the Chinese masters students popped into the lab and handed me a jam sandwich on a paper plate. I accepted it with thanks, ate it and thought no more about it.
In retrospect I realised that she did exactly what one does when trying to entice an animal to be friendly, offer some food. 😃 Oh dear, maybe I should have made some conversation. I can be a bit dim. I hope she wasn't disappointed.
It illustrates though the importance of food in Chinese culture. While these days how are you is rendered as nǐ hǎo, between familiars (possibly above a certain age) a common phrase is chī le fàn ma meaning have you eaten (a meal). There is more concern for the listener's well-being compared to nǐ hǎo. For example a singer coming on stage would not ask the crowd if they had eaten.
Here's an explanation of the phrase. The writer talks about northern China, but the phrase is also used in the southern parts, e.g. Guangdong.
