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Re: English Phrase from Chinese [was Re: Arabic Loan Words in Turkish]

Subject: Re: English Phrase from Chinese [was Re: Arabic Loan Words in Turkish]
From: Tak To
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:44:50 -0400
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Mike Wright wrote:

> yky wrote:
> 
>>Mike Wright wrote:
>>
>>>I finally found the Hokkien equivalent:
>>>
>>>愛面 / 無愛面
>>>/ai11 bin55/ /bo24 ai11 bin55/
>>
>>In Mandarin, it's 愛面子, a lesser extent of 死要面子.

顧惜面子,講究面子,爭面子,面子值千金,etc。

> Ah. Lee Sau Dan had said that he didn't think that 面 was used in
> Mandarin for that meaning of "face", but I thought that I had run
> across 失面子 in Mandarin. Does it always have the 子 when it's
> used to mean "face"? And, is 面子 used in Beijing Mandarin,
> or could it be an influence from one of the Southern languages?

Or that it has never disappeared completely from Northern dialects.
I think in modern vernacular, 面 meaning "reputation, prestige"
is always with 子 (or sometimes 兒) except in old sayings like
不看僧面看佛面.  Note also that 沒面子 is not the same as
沒臉(見人)。

Off topic.  One of the 108 outlaws of "Water Margin" is called
沒面目焦挺.  I have never figured out what the nick name mean.
Shameless?  Hediously disfigured?

Tak
--
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Tak To                                            takto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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 [taode takto ~{LU5B~}]      NB: trim the xx to get my real email addr


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