How to explain 更 in this sentence?

[anonymoose]

I came across a sentence in this article:

帖子立刻引起热议，一天内就有超过3000条转发。不少网友为了一睹帅哥“芳容”，昨晚更是冒雨前去买饼。

I understand the sentence, but if I try to explain or rationalise the use of 更（是） in the sentence, I can't come up with a satisfying explanation.

The way I see it, 更 implies to go further than something mentioned before (in other words, it constitutes a comparison), but in this sentence, there is only one event, so there is no explicit comparison.

I suspect that here, the 更 is in implicit relation to something else (the readers' expectation, maybe?), but I can't put my finger on it.

I would appreciate any constructive comments on this. Thanks.

[skylee]

The first event is 熱議. And in addition to just discussing his death, some fans went further. They went to where he had jumped regardless of the rain.

Hope this is constructive.

[anonymoose]

Thanks, skylee. Your responses are always constructive.

And in addition to just discussing his death, some fans went further. They went to where he had jumped regardless of the rain.

I'm not sure if we're reading the same article though.

[skylee]

oh sorry I have misread 帥哥 as 哥哥, so have mis-interpreted the situation.

But the explanation is similar. In addition to just discussing it, the fans went further to go to the cake shop hoping to meet the handsome guy.

[semantic nuance]

To put it simply, when we go shopping or buy stuff, we' might postpone it or call it off on a rainy day. 更是 here emphasizes, as you said, 'to go further', even when it's raining, people still desire to meet the man.

[zhongwei]

更mainly have two meanings in Chinese:

1. it is used to compare one thing with the other. For example:

In comparison with other students, Mike is more diligent:和其他学生相比，麦克更加勤勉一些

2. it is used to express the strong passion to do something just like in this sentence 昨晚更是冒雨前去买饼, you can treat the 更 as especially

[Kenny同志]

芳容 is appropriate here because it is in quotation marks, but I want to add that normally it refers only to beautiful women.

For a man, I would use 俊容 or 俊貌.

[anonymoose]

芳容 is appropriate here because it is in quotation marks, but I want to add that normally it refers only to good-looking men.

So what do you think the author's purpose was in using 芳容 here? Why didn't the author just use one of your suggestions?

[Kenny同志]

So what do you think the author's purpose was in using 芳容 here? Why didn't the author just use one of your suggestions?

I must correct myself. Normally 芳容 refers only to beautiful women, not men （I’ve edited my post）.

The author’s purpose I think was to sound humorous as 芳容 which is used only on women, is rather 文雅 while being kind of old-fashioned.

[anthonchai]

in chinese there is another phrase meaning kissing a beautiful woman "一亲芳泽"

i think it's a trend to use adjectives that are originally used for describing women to describe men

we will also say 美男 to refer to handsome man

masculine adj likes 俊俏 sounds old fashioned

[semantic nuance]

in chinese there is another phrase meaning kissing a beautiful woman "一亲芳泽"

一親芳澤 is not necessarily to mean to kiss a woman. 親 means 親近 (approaching).

This phrase means

親近自己所喜愛的女性。如：「為了一親芳澤，他常常藉故找她聊天。」

Quoted from here.

[SherryChen]

I am native chinese and a English major student studying in BLCU now.

In my opinion, in this sentence,

帖子立刻引起热议，一天内就有超过3000条转发。不少网友为了一睹帅哥“芳容”，昨晚更是冒雨前去买饼。

"更"means"even".

the main even is the “帖子", not only 3000条转发 to promote the "帅哥", but also 冒雨去看帅哥。

^^Hope it's useful