Random new word of the day

[trien27]

Found this in the Chinese newspaper two days ago: similar to the character I've last posted when written: 釁: xin4, means to quarrel. The simplified character is written as 衅.

[trien27]

智囊, zhìnáng, someone who's very knowledgeable, etc. Or a knowbags, which is a new word I've been inspired to create.

囊, náng, is a more fashionable word for "袋", which is like more sophisticated vocabulary rather like using "satchel" than "bag" or "sack". 袋 is a regular bag, while 囊, also called a 锦囊, was usually made of silk and by someone special like a parent or usually a "female lover" / "girlfriend", mystery person or a bag usually opened only in times of danger or emergencies, from ancient Chinese dramas. Usually, it's very small and portable.

From http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/智囊/1319759, 智囊 means "brain" and is not really in common usage, but nonetheless a term which is already coined. Another term is "脑袋" which also means "brain", where a 智囊团 = "think tank".

[imron]

(I'll put money on that I was looking it up incorrectly via radical)

For reference, it's the 食 radical - which like 麻, I've always thought of as a radical designed specifically to thwart foreigners in their attempts to look up words in the dictionary

[heifeng]

hmm, well then, I was definitely 'thwarted':evil:

I like that character though, I'll have to go outta my way to use it in something written in the future..wahaha:clap

[Lu]

死定了

I can't find it in a dictionary, but it's something like "Oh no! I'm in trouble!" One translation I found was "dead meat".

..right?

I mostly saw this one in movies, but usually as in 你~, meaning something along the lines of 'You're dead meat!' (is that actually real English?)

[renzhe]

'You're dead meat!' (is that actually real English?)

Yeah, it's not uncommon.

[trien27]

飨 xiǎng: entertain sb w/ food and drink, invite sb to enjoy sth.

such as: 一飨读者： cater to the readers.

The part on the left side, 乡, "xiang3" [means "the country or rural areas" ] is the phonetic, while the character on the right 食, "shi" [originally means "to eat" in Southern dialects, but is now used to mean "food" in Mandarin, where the verb "to eat" in Mandarin, is rather replaced by "吃", chi, which if you combine their meanings = "mouth of a beggar" or "from a beggar's mouth": I know, the 口, kou3, meaning "mouth" is the meaning of "putting something into the mouth" AKA "to eat", where 乞, qi of 乞丐, qi gai = "beggar"] is the semantic / radical.

From the Traditional character 饗 it's easier to see which is the radical, most of the time it's either on the left side or the bottom. With simplified characters it's hard to tell which is which at times. 鄉 is simplified to 乡 by taking only the left side of the original Traditional character, and since it doesn't look appealing when simplified and put in the original location, it's put on the left side of the radical.

From a Chinese character creation standpoint, the radical should be on the left most of the time, so 食 might be simplified to 飠 on the left side, with 乡 on the right side if it was created a very long time ago.

[trien27]

'You're dead meat!' (is that actually real English?)

dead meat = in big trouble ("You'd better run, man... you're dead meat!")*

This is considered somewhat lame now, but back in the '80s Mr. T** (and those who espoused his A-Team*** character's attitude) helped to make it common/popular.

It's actually from American English, from a 1980's TV show called "The A-team"*** where it's used most often by Mr. T**. He's called Mr. T** because they used the initial of his last name.

Source:

*Let's Slang!

Additional sources:

**Mr. T

***The A-Team

Edited July 23, 2009 at 02:56 AM by trien27

[anonymoose]

飨 xiǎng: entertain sb w/ food and drink, invite sb to enjoy sth.

such as: 一飨读者： cater to the readers.

It should be 以飨读者

[heifeng]

ohh, thanks! Goshdarnit, I'm such a typo mess recently...well more so than usual at least...Good thing ya'll proofread:D

[Lu]

Trien: yeah, I remember my little brother used that expression a lot, back in the eighties when we used to watch The A-Team. In my memory it was so cheesy and so bad-English-like that I wondered if it was real :-)

[roddy]

核不扩散， hébùkuòsàn. I heard this in the background and was thinking 何不what what. It's actually nuclear non-proliferation.

[imron]

Why not proliferate

[Scoobyqueen]

核不扩散

The word order then changes when referring to the non-proliferation agreement

不扩散核武器条约

[yersi]

頭目戰 tóumùzhàn - boss battle (in video games)

[leeyah]

Interesting new word:

单身贵族 , 'single nobles' or: singles aristocracy >>>称有较高经济收入，追求自由浪漫生活的单身男女,也泛指单身者有唏嘘彩色 (source: 新华新词语词典)

BTW I had no idea that 族 can be used as a suffix to denote certain type/class of people or group of people with common features; -(er)s, as in:

上班族 working people

办公族 office workers

有车族 car owners

追星族 (crazy:lol: ) star fans

背包族 backpackers

海归族 repatriates

月票族 monthly abonents (?)

波波族 bohemians

... ... ...

Edited July 21, 2009 at 11:53 AM by leeyah
:)

[roddy]

中试 - zhōngshì. Pilot (study, project), at least in the context I came across it. Looks odd to me, as I couldn't figure out what's 中 about it - this has it as part of a 小，中，大 progression.

[leeyah]

Looks odd to me, as I couldn't figure out what's 中 about it

Yes, it does Roddy, it looks just like one of those "new words".

新华新词语词典 has 中试 as 'preproduction test', def.: 产品设计完成到投入生产之前的实验 (& nothing on 小试 & 大试 ...)

Anyway, it seems 中试 is often translated as project (with 项目 being called project, too) as in:

项目名称:玉米、大豆生物制取结冷胶中试与转化

Name of Project: Pilot production project of gellan gum from corn and soy bean

[trien27]

奩 / 奁, lián = jewelry box, trinket box, or jewel casket

I found this in one of 李清照's poems.

Source: 鳳凰台上憶吹簫

Sorry, the above page is only in Traditional Chinese.

Edited July 23, 2009 at 02:45 AM by trien27
font size for characters too small

[trien27]

Good thing ya'll proofread

It's not "ya'll". It's "Y'all": the apostrophe is between the Y & the a, because Y' stands for "You". Y'all = "You all" meaning "All of you", used in southern United States in areas such as the state of Texas, etc...

This is pertaining to American dialects?

Howdy, Y'all?* is a common greeting down south, etc... [i meant southern U. S.]

Howdy, Y'all just means "How's everybody?" or something similar.