housing 2000 stalls ...10,000 customers and workers visiting daily

[GoodTaste]

If one of the stalls were yours (you were the "boss" of the stall), could you yourself be called as a customer there? Or called as the "boss" of the stall?

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Beijing reported its last case of local COVID-19 transmission in mid-April. The current outbreak began when a man with no history of recent travel visited a doctor on 10 June with a fever and chills. He tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and was hospitalized the following day. Officials think he or a close contact was infected at the Xinfadi Agricultural Wholesale Market, a massive 112-hectare complex housing 2000 stalls selling produce, seafood, and meat with 10,000 customers and workers visiting daily, according to Xinhua. This led to the massive effort to test market workers, customers, and even residents of nearby neighborhoods.

Source: Science
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/source-beijing-s-big-new-covid-19-outbreak-still-mystery

 

[GoesStation]

What do you find when you look up "customer" in a dictionary? Can any of the definitions apply to the owner of a business?

How about "worker"?

 

[Rover_KE]

stallholder

 

[teechar]

I would say "stall owner".

 

[GoodTaste]

What do you find when you look up "customer" in a dictionary? Can any of the definitions apply to the owner of a business?

I did have checked out dictionaries before posting the thread. A customer is someone who buys something from a business. There are two factors which contribute to the confusion in understanding: (1) Double identity of a stallowner: Someone who buys something from a stallholder is called a customer; in this case, the stallowner is the business that sells products. But to operate the business, the stallowner should have bought the stall from the market owner in the first place; and in this sense, the stallowner is a buyer or a customer. (2) The sum of daily visiting customers reported by Science is far too lower than that reported in China (Science: 10,000 daily; China's sources: 100,000 daily). The market sells 80% of vegs and fruits of Beijing (population: about 20 millions), so 100,000 daily visiting are more likely.

 

[GoesStation]

In this context, a customer is someone who goes to the market to buy something and a worker is someone who runs a stall or otherwise works in the market for pay.

The Science article cites the source of its information: the Xinhua news agency. They aren't reporting the story directly; they're summarizing Xinhua's story.

 

[GoodTaste]

A zero got left off. That doesn't change the grammar.

Beijing has a population of 21,500 people is a grammatically correct sentence. The fact that it is factually incorrect does not change this.

It is about linguistics, and liguistics is both about grammar and logic. If there were 2000 stalls, each stall has 5 people (employer and employees) on average, then there were already 10,000 people daily there without customers visiting. The logic has clearly pointed out the number (10,000 customers and workers visiting daily) is questionable.

The Science article cites the source of its information: the Xinhua news agency. They aren't reporting the story directly; they're summarizing Xinhua's story.

Could anyone find out any of the Xinhua sources?

 

[GoesStation]

The original question having been answered, I'm closing this thread.