How do I say this adjective?

[SimL]

I can't remember which book I have which the author did explain it.Anyway this word is for cuanciu not ciangciu if I am not wrong.
漳州市志 mention m ciann kui .

Wow! Thanks for reminding me of all these words I'd forgotten.

We had "m3 ciann3 khuan2" (literally, "not true type"). We used this phrase to mean someone who was not morally decent. e.g. if they told lies, or stole things, or spoke badly about other people behind their back.

Sim.

[jilang]

Sim, thanks for that clarification. I don't know whether you do or not(seeing as you are from penang or have at least stayed there) but I frequently take a look at the Penang Hokkien Podcasts Forums for interesting posts and just to read some people's Hokkien and I came across this http://penanghokkien.com/forum/index.ph ... opic=298.0 topic where posters where using hiau5 to mean both horny and dirty minded. When you said hiau5 could also be used as dirty minded did you mean that it's another meaning or that people don't really make much of a distinction with it?

We had "m3 ciann3 khuan2" (literally, "not true type"). We used this phrase to mean someone who was not morally decent. e.g. if they told lies, or stole things, or spoke badly about other people behind their back.

Thanks for that. My Hokkien vocabulary isn't very large so I appreciate it.

五支须，猪哥
for girl we can say tua iah be

Thanks for the hanzi, ong, I think I know those words so I won't be needing the tones for the original one but could you explain 五支须?(I don't recognize the third hanzi character).

[Andrew]

What does 五八四 stand for?

[jilang]

What does 五八四 stand for?

Where have you heard this. I wonder what this means too (besides a bunch of numbers).

[ong]

It is from those books about lottery number.584 is 猪八戒
I can't see what is the point for using it.

[Andrew]

What does 五八四 stand for?

Where have you heard this. I wonder what this means too (besides a bunch of numbers).

It was used a lot at school to mean the same as ham sap lo

[SimL]

Hi Jilang & Andrew

五八四 was quiet a common expression in Penang in my youth. I think it meant something very similar to 五支须. People would say "i goo peh si".

In fact, the phrase was so well-known that in our Malaysian English, we even said: "He's five eight four".

I'll have to ask my parents: 1) If I recall the *meaning* more or less correctly (of the *existence* of the phrase, I have no doubt), and 2) If there was a subtle difference between 五八四 and 五支须. (But these are slightly awkward matters to bring up with one's parents!)

Cheers,
Sim.

[jilang]

I wonder what the significance of those three numbers are. I've never heard it translated into English.

[SimL]

It is from those books about lottery number.584 is 猪八戒
I can't see what is the point for using it.

Jilang: Ong indicates that it comes from those lottery number books, and that he doesn't know the significance of using it to mean "dirty minded".

Had YOU heard the term before (in it's original Hokkien form I mean - I realise you said you hadn't heard it translated into English)?

I checked with my parents, and neither of them had ever heard of 五八四 / 猪八戒 goo-peh-si. I guess it could have been school slang, perhaps restricted to those few years. I was glad to see that Andrew seems to be familiar with it too though. That's why I'm curious to know if you (or any other readers) know it.

Andrew: where did you go to school? I went to Wellesley Primary School, on Northam Road, and Penang Free School, on Green Lane.

---

In Penang, "hiau5" is used to mean "dirty minded" for ANYONE, men and women (and I guess said more often about men than about women, because women were supposed to be chaste and non-sexual). I was hence very surprised when I found the word in the Douglas dictionary, with the following definition:

“hiau5”: lewd, lascivious (only said of vile women)
- “hiau5-khang2”: ditto.
- “hiau5-siau2”: ditto.
- “hiau5-lin1-long1”: exceedingly lascivious (woman).
- “lau7-hiau5”: an old and lewd woman.

I mean, I was particularly surprised that Douglas said it was restricted to women, never men.

So, I checked with my parents, and my mother confirmed that it was only in Penang that "hiau5" could be used for men. In her youth, in southern peninsular Malaysia, it was exactly the same usage as Douglas, i.e. could ONLY be used for women.

She explained that there was even a Malaysian-English term for "hiau5" in her youth, namely "itchified"!

I was also surprised that it wasn't at all embarassing to speak about these terms with my parents.

Regards,
Sim.

[ong]

I think it started with hiau also mean busybody or 自作多情 for man too.However it is found in dict which means pruriency for man and woman .