What does 'o' in Cantonese denote?

[bones]

I have seen this letter 'o' used for example in the lyrics of Sam Hui's songs.

eg (話知你９７)

手拿起枝筆數o下二千零廿八日

買份八卦雜誌睇o下大姐媚

Another phrase is: 發o牛o豆

Why is 'o' used?

[skylee]

For many words used in spoken Cantonese, there are either no equivalent written forms or the characters have become obsolete. So people borrow characters of the same pronunciations and then add a "口" (mouth) on the left, denoting that they are expressions of the spoken language. Words created like these are sometimes not in the database of popular input softwares, so people add an "o" on the left of the borrow words when they type them as it looks like a "口". Compare "o下" and "吓", "o甘" and "咁" and you will see.

[briarbird]

"o下" equals to "吓",it's an informal usage of Chinese character.I guess the typiest couldn't find it in his WINDOW character sets,so he'd made one.

發o牛o豆 means be in a daze.I cann't find the right characters for "o牛o豆" either,which is expressed in cantonese,not mandarin .

[bones]

Thanks for the explanation!

Is the same concept applied for words like '手拿' '手羅' and so on which are verbs of action for which there are no corresponding written characters?

[skylee]

I don't think so. Actually we can type many of these words nowadays (demand leads to supply), like 揦 and 攞. Probably people on the web are just lazy when it comes to the "口" side.

PS - I think it is not necessary for '手拿' to exist as we already have "拿" which already has a 手 inside and means the same.

[bones]

Quote: I think it is not necessary for '手拿' to exist as we already have "拿" which already has a 手 inside and means the same.

True. I came across another website which wrote'手拿' as '嗱'.

[bones]

"o下" equals to "吓",it's an informal usage of Chinese character.I guess the typiest couldn't find it in his WINDOW character sets,so he'd made one.

發o牛o豆 means be in a daze.I cann't find the right characters for "o牛o豆" either,which is expressed in cantonese,not mandarin .

I use scim and have no problems typing the characters 發吽哣. By the way, I thought 發吽哣 means to stare into space and not to be in a daze?

[skylee]

發吽哣 = 發呆 / 發楞