枝枪？

[SunnySideUp]

I had a bit of time on my hands this Sunday and came across two sentences where I'm not quite sure if I understood their meaning correctly (or if there's additional meaning I'm unaware of). They showed up as part of a test where you get to listen to a Chinese clip and then have to type out what's being said.

 

The first one is:

桌子上有一枝枪。

I misunderstood 枪 (producing 场instead, but that's another issue to work on). Now, after looking this up, I think it just means there is a gun on the table. Is that correct or is there a second meaning behind it?

 

And the second one was:

你的老毛病又犯了，要休息几天。

I'd translate this as: your old disease has come back again, you should take a few days to rest/rest a few days.

 

Is this correct or am I way off?

[dwq]

Yes, 枝 is a measure word for 枪.

[QAQo.]

You are correct.

But，

桌子上有一支枪 is better than 桌子上有一枝枪. Both 支 and 枝 could be used as measure word, but, in modern Chinese, 枝 commonly used to measure flowers such as 一枝花(a branch of flower/a flower). 

 

 

 

[Daniel ZHPY]

I don't think 一枝枪 is the most proper way to say that (at least as a native speaker I've never seen that before). It should be 一支枪 (for long ones like a rifle) or 一把枪(for small ones like a pistol). 枝 is usually used for flowers.

As for your translation it is correct, but it is good to take note that when we use 毛病 to refer to a disease, it should not be some quite unusual or serious illness as 毛 means hair (you can imagine an illness that is as small as a hair). Additionally, if we change the context the translation may not be the same. For example, if someone says,"老王那喜欢和别人吵架的老毛病又犯了"， it means that Mr Wang becomes easy to get into arguments with others again. Here we regard an annoying personality as sickness. 

[dwq]

现代汉语词典 says 枝 has the same meaning as 支 in the case of 一枝枪.

[roddy]

Interesting (well, relatively). This indicates they are interchangeable except for plants. That's originally from the 语言文字报, which looks like the kind of thing we should all be subscribing to.