可圈可點

[skylee]

I am having trouble with this term.

 

I used it in my status update the other day, and then was shocked to find that it means "remarkable, praiseworthy" according to the dictionaries.  I thought it meant "debatable".  But it was not a big deal that I misunderstood an idiom. 

 

But then I asked the people I know what the term meant. Of the 11 people who responded, only two of them agreed with the explanation in the dictionary.  Others agreed with my understanding.  This is weird.

 

All the people I asked are native Cantonese speakers.  All but one were born in HK.  All but two graduated from local universities.  Two of them are professional translators.  One of them, who has given up translation for a few years, agrees with the dictionary while the other shares my view.

 

This is of course a very small sample size.  But I find it hard to accept that 9 out of the 11 are wrong.  (How could this be? Like one teacher got it wrong and all his students got it wrong so all these students taught their students wrong?  I feel as if I have taken the wrong side believing that the earth is flat.)  I am prepared to put this term in the category of words having different meanings in Cantonese and Putonghua (like 班房, which means jail in Putonghua and classroom in Cantonese).

 

Wannabeafreak, one of the members here, asked the same question on cantosheik and he appeared to be as puzzled as I am.

 

Thoughts?

[gato]

See this from 多功能成语词典 on Pleco：

可圈可点〔---點〕

kě quān kě diǎn

解释 过去读书或评阅诗文时常在其精妙处加圈加点,表示赞赏｡后因用以比喻表现出色,值得肯定和赞美｡

例句 反映个人情思的格言警句式的哲理短句,文中俯拾皆是,可圈可点｡(谢冕《徐志摩名作欣赏》)

[skylee]

I have looked up dictionaries and I know the explanation.  I just don't understand how and why so many people understand the term differently (and whether there is indeed a gap between its usage in Cantonese/Putonghua or is it just that the understanding of the majority of people is a misunderstanding.)

[gato]

Have you looked it up in HK-published （or HK-authored) dictionaries?

[skylee]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have just done it.  And I attach a photo on what the 朗文中文高級新辭典 says.

 

Puzzle solved.

 

PS - Good that Pleco has also got the Longman Dictionary.

[anonymoose]

How does that picture solve the puzzle?

[skylee]

As shown in the picutre, the dictionary says -

 

港 <-> 漢

可圈可點。耐人尋味

 

In this dictionary, "港 <-> 漢" denotes "香港用語與規範漢語對照".  According to this, 可圈可點 used in Hong Kong basically means the same as 耐人尋味 in standard Hanyu.  This is in line with my understanding.

[Allen Zhang]

I looked it up in taiwan's 重编国语辞典：

 

表現突出，值得嘉許、肯定。如：「他最近表現得可圈可點，連連刷新跳高的全國紀錄。」

 

 

[skylee]

What is quoted in #8 is exactly what is in the first link of my post #1. (PS - 萌典 is based on the Taiwan MOE Dictionary.)

[muirm]

I like how this idiom matches up so well with "remarkable" for meaning and etymology. Even if you take "remark" to mean "to mark again" rather than just "mark", the Chinese idiom still matches since after circling the interesting part you also add a dot.