普及 and 普遍

Ok, what we need to know here is that 普及 is a verb and 普遍 is not. Ok, good. The problem is what kind of verb is 普及 anyway, and why is it left as sort of an afterthought when 普遍 is as 普遍 as a word can be. Ok, we know 普遍 is an adjective and roughly how to use it, (ok, better than roughly). That leaves 普及。

Normally there is no problem since we know 及 means 到, but, every once in a while we come across some tricky issues like:

nciku:
随着计算机及因特网的普及， 一种被称作“计算机综合征”的现代新生病越来越危及人们的健康.

Gotta love the "Interwang" there. But seriously, there is a crucial point here, you can't use an adjective here and that includes 普遍。 Why is that? Well, it has to do with chinese grammar and I'll explain it later in another post about issues I have with chinese grammar.

So, anyway, this translates to something like "Following the spread/adoption of computers and the internet...." (which nciku leaves as "with the popularization of computers and the internet) The issue here has to do with 1, the 的 being followed by a verb. And 2, the verb here is always going to in the past tense here and it will effectively be a noun. Now, in English, when I hear "With the adoption of the internet in all quarters..." I don't think, what's the verb in that sentence because to me that sentence doesn't have a verb, it has a noun. But here chinese only lets "verbs" become "nouns" and not "adjectives". In english this always comes across as these iffy words like "change" 'following the change', is change there a verb, a noun? Does english limit this type of thing to verb becoming nouns in those cases? Who knows, who cares? I do.

Get it? Get the issue? Get the point? Great. Use 普及 they're always trying to fuck with you.

Oh yes, and you must know 普及本 which means "popular edition" whatever the fuck that means in english, they'll test this too.

Ok, back to 'normal' uses of 普及。 Rather pedestrian stuff, eg. nciku:

普及基本的消防知识

Yes, it means what you think it does, and that's why nciku still kinda blows. But, it saves time when I'm too lazy to do real internet searches or open my dictionary.

普及 然后 名词 to be “普及'd" 。 Easy enough. Toodles.