Random new word of the day

[renzhe]

PIGS - 歐豬四國

I thought that the PIGS acronym was offensive enough (due to the ovious "accidental" connotations), but the translation is even worse.

[jbradfor]

I think the PIGS acronym is funny, and intentionally offensive due to the dislike many have for these countries throwing the entire world into financial uncertainty. I think the Chinese is especially clever due to the pun on 欧洲 vs 歐豬(zhou1 vs zhu1).

[imron]

and intentionally offensive due to the dislike many have for these countries throwing the entire world into financial uncertainty

Hmm, I wonder what intentionally offensive name I can come up with for that other big country that is also largely responsible for the world's current financial uncertainty.

[skylee]

Re PIGS. I think there is a connection between the coining and translation of the terms PIGS and BRIC (see #609-610 of page 31 of this thread). Nobody seems to object to BRIC. 金磚四國 vs 歐豬四國, sound about right.

[jbradfor]

I wonder what intentionally offensive name I can come up with for that other big country that is also largely responsible for the world's current financial uncertainty.

Oh come on, we're responsible for 2009's financial uncertainty, not the current one. [Not that we're really helping the current either....]

[heifeng]

hey, don't raise my hopes that there are actually new words on these posts when there are not 哼 j/k

so back to things swine related...or not...

pig iron： 生铁锭

[anonymoose]

I'm no economist, but isn't the current financial uncertainty just a continuation of the 2009 one?

[Nakura]

干爹，in traditional script, it would have three meanings: to defend one's father;to offend one's father; to seek for a father.

just for fun, because 干 has three meanings, to defend, to offend and to seek for

[jbradfor]

Sorry heifeng! [i couldn't apologize until I had something to add.....]

累. Why 累, it's so common?

累累 both in second tone means "clusters of / piles of / heaps of"

累累 both in third tone means "again and again / innumerable / repeated / riddled with / accumulated / countless"

累累 both in fourth tone means "tired / exhausted / wretched / dejected / disappointed"

And somehow people actually learn this language?

Source:MDBG

[shuhaier]

to Kyle_Wang. Indeed, the BFF we called 死党 or just brother（哥们） if BFF means永远最好的朋友。闺蜜is only used among female.

[Michaelyus]

The 破音字 nature of 累 caused a few hiccoughs in yesterday's scriptural study meeting, where 缠累 "to entangle" came up (as in "the sin that easily entangles us" / "the sin which doth so easily beset us"), and it was transcribed into pīnyīn as chánlèi in the article but chánlěi in the transliterated scriptural editions. According to zDic, the 去声 (i.e. Mandarin fourth tone) version is primary, but the 上声 (Mandarin third tone) version is also found. Its meaning seems to be derived from 拖累 which is standardised in Mandarin as 上声 (third tone), hence the variation.

According to CantoDict, Cantonese uses (陽)去聲 (Jyutping sixth tone) for 拖累, so I expect there's no variation there for 纏累 (which isn't in the dictionary). The 台語/華文線頂辭典 says the same (though the equivalent is a macron in pe̍h-ōe-jī, conventionally numbered 7th tone) for standard Taiwanese Minnan.

This could be an instance of Mandarin free variation, albeit in a fairly specialist field...

MDBG gives 绊住 bàn​zhù​, 缠结 chán​jié​, and 牵缠 qiān​chán​ for "entangle".

[rob07]

Thought this one was funny - 力比多, libido.

[heifeng]

皮卡 (车)： pick up truck (well, one way to say it that is). Ran into it here: 稳、硬、新：解读皮卡市场“风骏现象”

[roddy]

绞车 jiǎochē - winch.

What other uses are there of 车 for machines that go round and round. 风车，纺车，车床 - any others?

[xiaocai]

行(háng)车

[roddy]

Oooh, good one.

[heifeng]

吊车diào​chē ( 起重机）crane

[jbradfor]

信用違約互換 -- CDS (Credit Default Swaps)

Added for you, rezaf

Feel free to join the "should you know what a CDS is" debate

[rezaf]

Thanks, but I don't know if I should categorize it as a word or a sentence.

[roddy]

This one's brilliant. 耷. Pronounced dā. I'm not going to tell you what it means as you already know having looked at it.