Some more Hokkien words

[Ah-bin]

Just for your information xng, because I know you want to speak Amoy Hokkien

The Amoy variety doesn't seem to have any of these meanings for khang-thâu，it seems to be a Southeast asian thing.

廈門方言詞典 has the three meanings
1) metaphor for things that exist in name only or things that don't work properly 比喻有名無實或不發生作用的
2) something bad 事兒（含貶義）
3) a secret affair between a man and a woman 特指男女不正當的私情

By the way does everyone know the word khin-kho 輕可 for relaxed or is it only used in some places? I haven't heard it in Penang Hokkien yet, so I mistook it for kan-khO (difficult)

[xng]

Just for your information xng, because I know you want to speak Amoy Hokkien

The Amoy variety doesn't seem to have any of these meanings for khang-thâu，it seems to be a Southeast asian thing.

廈門方言詞典 has the three meanings
1) metaphor for things that exist in name only or things that don't work properly 比喻有名無實或不發生作用的
2) something bad 事兒（含貶義）
3) a secret affair between a man and a woman 特指男女不正當的私情

I have never heard it in Taiwanese films too so I don't know the origin whether it originate in china or Msia/Singapore.

But in Malaysia/Singapore, the meaning is what we stated, I've heard a lot of businessmen use it when meeting others, 'Uh kang tau boh', what are the 'good business opportunities to earn money'.

So 1 to 3 definitely won't fit this meaning.

[Ah-bin]

I was just telling you because you said so many times before that you want to speak "standard" Hokkien, and since it is not recorded in the Amoy dictionaries you should stop using it for the time being, if you want to be consistent.

[xng]

I was just telling you because you said so many times before that you want to speak "standard" Hokkien, and since it is not recorded in the Amoy dictionaries you should stop using it for the time being, if you want to be consistent.

I am saying that I wish to speak xiamen pronounciation only but K'ang T'au is still pronounced the same in all variants.

Perhaps aokh can enlighten us on this one as he is in xiamen now. Whether this word is spoken in china with the same meaning.

[aokh1979]

xng, I checked with some friends in Fujian province. Apparently khang-thau is a very common word in daily life. It does mean "affair" or "good deed" in their variants. I don't suppose every dictionary to record every word we use. Not to say I am pleased with it, but dictionaries sometimes don't display the real usage.

Do you use khang-khue or khang-khueh in your variant ? Some dictionaries say it is 工課 but I think it is 空缺, which means "job" or "task". I don't know the word, I use it everyday and I don't quite agree it's 工課 because I read it khang, not kang. 林寶卿 says 工 is read khang only in 工課, I will keep an open-mind because it does not make sense to me. If a character is pronounced differently for just 1 vocabulary, we have every reason to doubt its origin. Your thought ?

[Ah-bin]

I have heard some more words that I can't track down in a dictionary.

One is chit-lo-lai, which was uttered very quickly, I guess it is 一路來, and the context made it seem to fit the meaning "all along" or always (in the past). The sentence was something like "Lu si chit-lo-lai kiaN ka-choa ah-si..." meaning "Were you always afraid of cockroaches, or..."

The other one was "mO kui chhang" which seems to be something like "terrified" or "hair standing on end"

MO is 毛, and I've found the last syllable "chhang" ...... half way through writing this I just found the answer... it's 毛管翀 mO kuiN chhang. In my dictionary it says it the other way around 翀毛管, that's why I couldn't find it.

Another one is sEN mO, which I found in Tan Choon Hoe's book. Do people use this much in Penang, and Kedah? 生毛 he says it means irritating or annoying, and is a bad insult.

That podcast is excellent, I always pick up at least three new and useful words a week. Some of them defy a single word translation into English or Mandarin, like 收山 siu-soaN "to stop doing something"

[SimL]

The other one was "mO kui chhang" which seems to be something like "terrified" or "hair standing on end"

This is the only one I know. Yes, indeed, your guess is correct. I use it to mean something like "get gooseflesh", mostly, as you suggest, in situations which are scary, though also for when one feels cold. For me, even very slightly scary situations (e.g. a slightly uncomfortable feeling of creepiness in a dark place, or a "someone walked on my grave" situation) can be described on this way, so it's less strong than "terrified" (though it can definitely be used for the more extreme situations as well).

Of course, "mO" would be 毛, but I've always thought of "kui" (I say it without nasalization) as 鬼. What do others think / does anyone know otherwise? The last syllable is an adjective/verb which means something like "springy, erect" (for plants and plant-like things). You could say of someone with a mohawk or very spiky hair "i e thau-mO cin-nia chang", or "i e thau-mO chang ka an-nE kuan" (indicating some height above the top of the head with your hand, to show where the hair reaches up to). Or a very bushy shrub might be described as "ci(t)-le cang e hioh cin-nia chang" - but this would suggest more a shrub with longish leaves, which stick out (e.g. a very healthy bush of lemon grass), or "ci(t)-le cang e ki cin-nia chang" - a shrub with lots of very small slender branches, which stick out.

[aokh1979]

These are very common words in Penang.

一路來 Tsit Loo Lai is a common word in Hokkien, Cantonese and Mandarin. Sometimes, we say 一路以來 Tsit Loo I Lai.

毛管翀 is a little unsure, same as SimL, I say it without nasalisation, but in Cantonese it is 毛管棟 or 毛管戙, so I believe it's the same thing. I suspect the Tshang in Hokkien and Tong in Cantonese may even refer to the same character. I don't know which one actually fits both sounds though.

生毛 Seenn Moo maybe a 借音字 because the 2 characters actually look quite funny to me. Although it can be explained through "growing hair" where your skin gets a little itchy, thus you move around act like a buttinsky to get yourself occupied...... But I am not sure if it's scientifically reasonable !

收山 Siu Suann means more than just "stop doing" to me. It could mean "quit from one job". My father used to run a kopitiam (Malaysian style cafe) in Penang, he retired, so I could say he's no longer in that business. I i-keng siu-suann liau......

[SimL]

... I i-keng siu-suann liau......

Hi aokh1979,

I told Ah-bin that nobody in Penang says "i-keng" for "already" / past tense. Looks like I'm very wrong! It's true that nobody in my extended family (even those who speak very little English) use it.

[Ah-bin]

Thanks again for these... I forgot to mention that the character for chhang was just the one the dictionary provided as a 近音字.

I suspected 一路來 might be in Mandarin, I've always just used 從來 instead so I wasn't sure.

I thought of 鬼 first too, because I didn't hear the nasalisation. I suppose it could have turned into a 鬼 in some people's speech (and thought) through the same process of analogy and similarity in pronunciation that turned buck-naked into butt-naked (or the other way around, I forget which).

Thanks for teaching me the new English word too Aokh1979 "buttinsky" is great! I'd never heard it before

I remember in Taiwanese they use 龜毛 ku-mO (and I think they even said "mO" in that case instead of the usual "mng" for someone being indecisive. I think that was what it meant, and it conjured up the idea of a tortoise that couldn't make up its mind whether to stick its head out or keep it in!