Two sentences from 骆驼祥子

[david387]

This is my translation, so I don't begin to tell you it is perfect so that is why I am putting it here.

1/

二强嫂是全院里最矮最丑的妇人，嚵脑门，大腮帮，头上没有什么头发，牙老露在外边，脸上被雀斑占满，看着令人恶心。

The second brother's wife where's the shortest and the ugliest of the married women, with a fat forehead, big cheeks, teeth sticking out, a freckle filled face, and made you want to vomit.

 

I especially have never seen 嚵脑门

 

2/
能刚能柔才是本事，她得癴他一把儿：“我也知道你是要强啊，可是你也得知道我是真疼你。你要是不肯找老头子去呢，这么办：我去找。反正就是他的女儿，丢个脸也没什么的。”

 

With the talent for using softness, she gave him a chill with her words： I know that you are strong but you should know that you really hurt me. You are not sure about returning to see the old man oh, so what now? I'll go find him.  Anyways I am his daughter, losing face is no big deal.

 

I especially had not seen 癴 and I still don't understand that part of the sentence.

[Publius]

There's a lot of different versions in circulation. Until you can find the original manuscript, it's hard to tell which is correct, I'm afraid.

For example, a quick google search reveals an online text from the mainland that has "奔脑门" instead of "嚵脑门". Which is the opposite of "flat". Other variations include 晻脑门、巉脑门、嗅脑门、噴脑门、喰脑门、嘎脑门. All seem to be nonsensical OCR errors.

And another text from Google Books reads "她得瀎泧他一把儿" with the footnote "瀎泧，念mā‧sa，用手轻微地捋，这里指怀柔笼络。" This is at least plausible to me, though that dialectal word is usually written as 摩挲 today.

[david387]

28 minutes ago, Publius said:

There's a lot of different versions in circulation. Until you can find the original manuscript, it's hard to tell which is correct, I'm afraid.

Is this a common problem? is it often difficult to find the original text posted somewhere online? I also noticed in this book sometimes there was the occurrence of XX which someone told me meant that it was a vulgar word that was omitted.

 

Interestingly, I ordered this book from Amazon and it was printed the day before I received it. Somehow it was a print-on-demand sort of thing.

[imron]

53 minutes ago, david387 said:

Is this a common problem?

Yes.

 

54 minutes ago, david387 said:

is it often difficult to find the original text posted somewhere online?

Yes, because many (most) electronic versions are just automatic OCR scans, and while OCR tech is pretty good, it's not 100%.

[roddy]

And often the versions online date back to when OCR errors were even more common.