歇后语

[Nathan Mao]

I ran across a 歇后语 tonight watching 一代枭雄：

“[我] 怕是脚底抹油   溜走！”

That's a 歇后语。 The 溜走 is a pun.  Literally, it means to slide/slip while walking because you stepped in some oil.  But the figurative meaning is that the people slipped away.

 

If 歇后语 haven't been discussed here yet, it is another form of idiom.

I'm not good at describing, so bear with me.

It usually takes the form of setting up a semi-humorous or 贫嘴-ish pun.

You first give the situation: "It's like..."  In Chinese, that comes out: “就象什么什么什么。。。“ Then you pause a beat, and say the pun.

One of my old teachers gave me a draft of a book he was writing that collected the 歇后语。

 

Probably the most used one is "That story was just like Madame Zhang's foot wraps: both long and stinky!"

懒婆娘的裹脚--又长又臭！(the one I found online wasn't Madame Zhang...they used "lazy gossip"...there may be different forms of the same 歇后语。)

Another is:

 

-That's like your nephew holding up a lantern for you: [pun for] "Just like always/as usual"

外甥打灯笼——照舅 (pun for: 照旧）

 

I could have sworn I heard of one about a seamstress being good with a needle, being a pun for "what a coincidence!" (真巧!) but I can't find it.

 

Anyway, here is a 歇后语词典目录：

http://mall.cnki.net/Reference/read_R200906044.html

[skylee]

These threads are relevant ->

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/5025-%E6%AD%87%E5%BE%8C%E8%AA%9E/

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/6686-%E6%AD%87%E5%90%8E%E8%AF%AD/

[Nathan Mao]

Interesting. I searched the forum for 歇后语 and nothing came up.

[ouyangjun]

Good topic.  I like 歇后语 better than 成语.  But since their longer I have a harder time remembering them.  The ones I often try to slip into conversation when appropriate:

 

肉包子打狗，一去不回.   Throwing a meat bun to a dog, you won't get it back.  The meaning is that you give something to someone or do something for someone, but get nothing in return.

 

脱的裤子放屁，多此一举.  Taking your pants off to fart, unnecessary action.  This is pretty easy to understand the meaning.  Going through unnecessary action.

 

I guess I should go to the threads that Skylee posted for more 歇后语.  

[Nathan Mao]

Hm. I originally thought that 歇后语 usually had a pun as the final component.

 

But I guess not: as I perused through the online dictionary, there are many that are not, just like the two you provided.

[ouyangjun]

I never really looked into what is or isn't considered a 歇后语, I learned all of my 歇后语 from Chinese friends.  I just now did a search on baidu and found the following link that goes into detail. 

 

http://baike.baidu.com/link?url=9PnqS7M5auSVljC4niAS15v88Q-niCjz00XlQ03i1MQreyj1gYHKzf67Jv7wmeRW

 

The introduction is copy and pasted below:

 

"歇后语是中国汉族劳动人民在生活实践中创造的一种特殊语言形式，是一种短小、风趣、形象的语句。它由前后两部分组成：前一部分起“引子”作用，像谜面，后一部分起“后衬”的作用，像谜底，十分自然贴切。在一定的语言环境中，通常说出前半截，“歇”去后半截，就可以领会和猜想出它的本意，所以就称为歇后语。"

[gato]

歇后语 and 俗语 are more like what's known as "idioms" in English: phrases like "pig in a poke", "pot calling kettle black", "can't teach an old dog new tricks". They are old phrases developed through an oral tradition.

成语 are more like quoting from Shakespeare or old Greek and Roman classics, much more bookish. People don't write or speak like that in English anymore, though they still used to 200-300 years ago.

[Demonic_Duck]

Great thread, to be honest I wasn't familiar with this type of construction (although I've seen "脱裤子放屁" before). Some of these seem a bit like certain cockney rhyming slang expressions to me (e.g. "look -> butcher's hook -> butcher's"), where the explicit part of the expression is omitted, thus obscuring the meaning to people who aren't in the know.

[Ruben von Zwack]

Thanks, those are funny. Or gross. Both!