花錢- "Flower" Money?

[rose~]

Can anyone tell me why it's [pop=spend money/huāqián]花錢[/pop]? Flower money?

[i know it means spend money, by the way ]

[ananda]

It's a quite strange usage in modern chinese. I guess it has a Manchurian or Monglian orgin. I can't find it happened in traditional article.

[sissi]

花--spent，verb

钱--money,noun

I have never met such a sentence where '花钱' means 'flower money':)

[rose~]

Hehe, I do realize that it doesn't mean "flower money"...I am wondering why is 花 acting as "spend" when it means "flower" originally? What's the origin or the reason?

[roddy]

Has it perhaps somehow come from 化钱, which can also mean to spend money and has a more understandable meaning? Just speculating.

[sui.generis]

Why do you drive on a parkway and park on driveway?

I don't mean stifle your curiousity, I just don't get to float that one very often.

[semantic nuance]

Hi,

花 here is in fact an abbriviation of 花費 (spend).

Hope it helps!

[Xiphoid]

^That doesn't really answer the question though does it? It still leaves why "flower" would be used in a compound meaning "to spend". Plus, I think "huaqian" has been around longer than "huafei" anyway, so it wouldn't be an abbreviation.

If you check a dictionary and look at the other meanings I think you can see the general route the character take to acquire the meaning of "to spend".

Flower > Floral > Fancy > Extravagent > Wasteful > To waste > To spend

See? I very much doubt it took on the meaning "to spend" overnight. More likely it's a good example of what can happen to a word if it stays in use for a very long time; it gradually acquires new meanings further and further from its original purpose, but each only a logical step away from the last.

[Xiphoid]

^That doesn't really answer the question though does it? It still leaves why "flower" would be used in a compound meaning "to spend". Plus, I think "huaqian" has been around longer than "huafei" anyway, so it wouldn't be an abbreviation.

If you check a dictionary and look at the other meanings I think you can see the general route the character take to acquire the meaning of "to spend".

Flower > Floral > Fancy > Extravagent > Wasteful > To waste > To spend

See? I very much doubt it took on the meaning "to spend" overnight. More likely it's a good example of what can happen to a word if it stays in use for a very long time; it gradually acquires new meanings further and further from its original purpose, but each only a logical step away from the last.

[rose~]

I have looked in the [pop=national language/guóyǔ]國語[/pop][pop=glossary/cídiǎn]辭典[/pop], here, and it has three entries.

1.賣花錢

2.花錢

3. 花錢粉鈔

This is the entry for 2:

使用金錢。老殘遊記˙第十八回：至於魏家花錢，是他鄉下人沒見識處，不足為怪也。紅樓夢˙第五十三回：那府裡這幾年添了許多花錢的事，一定不可免是要花的，卻又不添些銀子產業。

嫖客付給妓女的費用。儒林外史˙第五十四回：你往常嫖客給的花錢，何常分一個半個給我？

婦女用在花簪粉黛等化妝品上的錢。

As far as I can see, these three explanations treat 花錢 as a noun, like expenses, the expenses of a prostitute or money a woman would spend on 化妝品. There is no entry as a verb.

The entry suggests [pop=to waste money/fèiqián]費錢[/pop] as being similar. It triggered a memory of my teacher in Taiwan talking about how we should say 費錢 and not 花錢. It doesn't mention it being another form of 化錢, but I will try some other dictionaries.

[sissi]

嫖客付給妓女的費用。儒林外史˙第五十四回：你往常嫖客給的花錢，何常分一個半個給我？

婦女用在花簪粉黛等化妝品上的錢。

Yeah,I remembered.Blushed for my bad memory.