[tongyan]

qrasy's many intriguing inquiries into cantonese has made me realize that many intricacies of my native tongue are yet to be made known to myself and i believe, to many others. to begin, since cantonese has many colorful colloquialisms which many people ues but probably have no idea where they came from, i thought it'd be fun to throw some out and see if we can learn from each other.

茄喱啡 (ke1 le1 fe1) "an extra in a movie/drama"

i've heard 3 explanations for this term - maybe somebody can help me out on this one?

1. 茄喱啡 ke-le-fe - the three characters are abbreviations for 鮮「茄」牛肉飯 (Tomatio and Beef over Rice) and 咖「喱」雞飯 (Curry Chicken over Rice) and 咖「啡」(Coffee). These were the only choices for a meal available to the people who worked as extras on a set and thus the extras were known as the 'ke-le-fe'

2. 茄喱啡 ke-le-fe is a transliteration of the english word "Carefree" because these extras have no contractual agreement with the studio, they just walk around or stand there and are under no stress, so they are 'carefree'

3. 茄喱啡 ke-le-fe is a vulgarization of "kill film" these extras have no actor training and they constantly messing up, thus "killing film".

[tongyan]

拗撬 (aau3 giu6) argue/argument.

this word is an approximation of the english word "argue" (surprise)

食過夜粥 (sik6 gwo3 je6 zuk1) lit. "has eaten nighttime porridge"
this phrase actually refers to somebody who has learnt kungfu...
in the olden days, people that went to learn the art began their lessons in the evening, after dinner had been served. (cooler at night maybe?) after the lesson was ended, a big pot of porridge was prepared for the students' enjoyment and thus the term was coined.

老笠 (lou3 lap1) lit. "old cover" (the 'old' doesn't really have any semantic meaning)
a robbery. there are two explanations for this one.
1. the one that i'm familiar with, is that in the olden days, robberies were carried out by 'covering' somebody's head so they could not identify you and then taking their belongings.
2. approximation of the english word "robbery" (i heard this from one guy who might have just made it up)


鬼食泥 (gwai2 sik6 nai4) lit. "ghost eating dirt"
this phrase refers to people who are mumbling to themselves... which sounds to Cantonese pepole like the sound of ghosts eating dirt.


二打六 (ji6 da2 luk6) lit. "two hitting six"
phrase refers to people who are unqualified/have no skill/think they have that skill... in other words, incompetents.
why? i don't know... somebody help me on this one. maybe 2+6=8 doesn't amount to 10?

十下十下 (sap6 ha6 sap6 ha6) (the characters are incorrect, they are just there to approximate sound)
lit meaning. "constant blinking of eyes"
real meaning: refers to people who are not too sharp (read: slow) because mentally incompetent people were seen to be constantly blinking their eyes

that's all for now... i will post as i think of more

[urofpersia]

老豆 lou dao

means Father. Right?

[urofpersia]

tongyan, on Oct 15 2005, 01:15 PM, said:

qrasy's many intriguing inquiries into cantonese has made me realize that many intricacies of my native tongue are yet to be made known to myself and i believe, to many others. to begin, since cantonese has many colorful colloquialisms which many people ues but probably have no idea where they came from, i thought it'd be fun to throw some out and see if we can learn from each other.

茄喱啡 (ke1 le1 fe1) "an extra in a movie/drama"

i've heard 3 explanations for this term - maybe somebody can help me out on this one?

1. 茄喱啡 ke-le-fe - the three characters are abbreviations for 鮮「茄」牛肉飯 (Tomatio and Beef over Rice) and 咖「喱」雞飯 (Curry Chicken over Rice) and 咖「啡」(Coffee). These were the only choices for a meal available to the people who worked as extras on a set and thus the extras were known as the 'ke-le-fe'

2. 茄喱啡 ke-le-fe is a transliteration of the english word "Carefree" because these extras have no contractual agreement with the studio, they just walk around or stand there and are under no stress, so they are 'carefree'

3. 茄喱啡 ke-le-fe is a vulgarization of "kill film" these extras have no actor training and they constantly messing up, thus "killing film".

Really, I honestly thought it was some kind of fancy french term to describe extras.

[xng]

1. Not feasible because hong kong people usually don't eat curry. Curry is considered a good food not an extraneous food.

2. Most probably this is the right one considering the fact that they use the sound of (le and fe). The mouth sign.

3. Film is "fei lam" not "fe". So this is the wrong interpretation. There are original chinese words for kill so we don't need to use "ke" !

[qrasy]

http://www.huayuqiao...aolin/txl13.htm
http://sunzi1.lib.hk...30433083/ft.pdf
That's all I can find about that "kelefe".

Quote

香港用音译词，现代汉语规范词语不用外来词，以下括号外是香港的写法，括号内是规范词语的用法：波(球) 、士多啤梨(草莓) 、咕(靠垫) 、布(李子) 、车厘子(樱桃) 、派对(小型餐舞会)、茄喱啡(配角) 、士多(杂货店) 、班戟(薄煎饼) 、巴(号码) 、巴温(第一) 、晒士(尺码) 、巴仙(百分比) 、汰(领带) 、厘士(通花布) 、柯打(定单)。以上有些词香港是音译词和规范词语同时并用，例如：柯打和订单，落柯打和下订单都可以说。有些香港也弃用音译词，多用规范词语，例如：少用士的，多用手杖；少用燕梳，多用保险；少用灰士，多用保险丝。这一类型的音译词，可算作香港粤方言中的外来词，用得多了，规范词汇中也可能吸收一些，和规范词语并用。大多数情下，因为已有规范用法，就不再采用音译。比如，打球、球鞋，不一定再说打波、波鞋了。

Some characters becomes plain square/dot (巴). Also an funny thing is Pie becomes 批 in Hong Kong.

Some common words are actually already strange:
Hampalang sap sai

This post has been edited by qrasy: 15 October 2005 - 05:01 AM

[tongyan]

xng, on Oct 15 2005, 04:03 AM, said:

1. Not feasible because hong kong people usually don't eat curry. Curry is considered a good food not an extraneous food.

2. Most probably this is the right one considering the fact that they use the sound of (le and fe). The mouth sign.

3. Film is "fei lam" not "fe". So this is the wrong interpretation. There are original chinese words for kill so we don't need to use "ke" !

1. i partly disagree on this one. because a large population of ethnic minorities, who use curry in their cooking, live in HK, curry is actually quite popular. for example, curry fishballs 咖哩魚蛋 - using a chinese food in a curry dish.

2. i tend to think this is the right one as well but not as interesting as the others.

3. film is 'fei lam' and not 'fe' but there are many instances where a close approximation will suffice for the sake of rhyming. also, just because there are original chinese words for 'kill' doesn't mean that the word can't be borrowed. like in qrasy's examples above, 柯打 (order) is used when there is an original chinese word for it.

[xng]

tongyan, on Oct 15 2005, 02:56 PM, said:

1. i partly disagree on this one. because a large population of ethnic minorities, who use curry in their cooking, live in HK, curry is actually quite popular. for example, curry fishballs 咖哩魚蛋 - using a chinese food in a curry dish.

2. i tend to think this is the right one as well but not as interesting as the others.

3. film is 'fei lam' and not 'fe' but there are many instances where a close approximation will suffice for the sake of rhyming. also, just because there are original chinese words for 'kill' doesn't mean that the word can't be borrowed. like in qrasy's examples above, 柯打 (order) is used when there is an original chinese word for it.

1.I am saying that most han chinese in china don't eat hot food regularly. So curry dishes would be more difficult to find than the non-curry dishes even though it is popular. Anything that is difficult to find wouldn't be given to actors that are less important, don't you think so ? What do common folks usually eat ? Jaap faan without curry ?

3. But 'ke' is not an approximation for kill. Usually there would be 2 monosyllabic, just like bus - ba si. So kill would be 'ke lei'. And 'fe' is not an approximation of 'fei lam' which is already an approximation for 'film'.

This post has been edited by xng: 16 October 2005 - 09:24 AM

[tongyan]

xng, on Oct 16 2005, 09:22 AM, said:

1.I am saying that most han chinese in china don't eat hot food regularly. So curry dishes would be more difficult to find than the non-curry dishes even though it is popular. Anything that is difficult to find wouldn't be given to actors that are less important, don't you think so ? What do common folks usually eat ? Jaap faan without curry ?

3. But 'ke' is not an approximation for kill. Usually there would be 2 monosyllabic, just like bus - ba si. So kill would be 'ke lei'. And 'fe' is not an approximation of 'fei lam' which is already an approximation for 'film'.

not trying to argue with you about the conclusions you reach but only on the basis of how you reached them.

1. i think just because han chinese in china don't eat hot food regularly doesn't mean that it is representative of the han chinese in HK. Curry dishes are harder to find than non-curry dishes simply because there are much more non-curry dishes than curry dishes. This doesn't fly since tomato beef dishes are harder to find than non-tomato beef dishes also. Vegetarian dishes are harder to find than non-vegetarian dishes too but it would seem that you wouldn't find anything wrong in giving vegetarian dishes to less-important actors.
The thing is, the 'curry' that is used in those dishes is not the true indian or thai curry, it's that yellow powder mix which is pretty cheap and its not particularly spicy, so I don't see why curry chicken can't be served to less-important actors - it is cheaper than using fresh tomatos in tomato-beef rice, which you don't seem to have a problem with.

3. usually there are 2 monosyllabics, but for the sake of abbreviation, sometimes one is used, like 齋啡 (plain/black coffee) 啡 is used to mean coffee. and even in your example, 巴士 - the 士 from 巴士 is omitted in the term 小巴 (small bus). i don't see why they can't use 'ke' to approximate 'kill.' But let's just assume that there has to be 2 monosyllabics, then i don't see why we can't use 'ke le' to approximate 'kill' if, 'ke le' can be use to approximate 'care' in 'carefree.' and 'fe' can be an approximation of 'fei lam' just for the sake of rhyming with the prior two words. you can look at my previous thread about rhyming cantonese words - there is a tendency to make words rhyme and it is not too far a stretch from 'fei' to 'fe'.

[qrasy]

tongyan, on Oct 17 2005, 03:35 AM, said:

The thing is, the 'curry' that is used in those dishes is not the true indian or thai curry, it's that yellow powder mix which is pretty cheap and its not particularly spicy, so I don't see why curry chicken can't be served to less-important actors - it is cheaper than using fresh tomatos in tomato-beef rice, which you don't seem to have a problem with.

Yeah, the "curry" I eat here is bad in taste, and not hot at all. Only the "yellowness "is comparable with the Indian curry.

Quote

3. usually there are 2 monosyllabics, but for the sake of abbreviation, sometimes one is used, like 齋啡 (plain/black coffee) 啡 is used to mean coffee. and even in your example, 巴士 - the 士 from 巴士 is omitted in the term 小巴 (small bus). i don't see why they can't use 'ke' to approximate 'kill.' But let's just assume that there has to be 2 monosyllabics, then i don't see why we can't use 'ke le' to approximate 'kill' if, 'ke le' can be use to approximate 'care' in 'carefree.' and 'fe' can be an approximation of 'fei lam' just for the sake of rhyming with the prior two words. you can look at my previous thread about rhyming cantonese words - there is a tendency to make words rhyme and it is not too far a stretch from 'fei' to 'fe'.

Hong Kong people often do not pronounce -'l' in the ending, usually they read them as 'w', so they usually read 'milk' as 'miwk', 'hill' as 'hiw', 'all' as 'o' and so on.

[xng]

1. The only way to find out is to ask someone in HK now to go and ask the 'ke le fe' what they eat for lunch. If it is not curry, then this is the wrong answer.

3. Not everything have to rhyme (this is not a poem or a song), coffee is "ka fe" and it didn't rhyme. File is "fai lo" so if they want to approximate kill it should be "ke lo". Usually you don't have 2 sounds for the same approximation. "fei lam" would be abbreviated to "fei" if I take your example from "bus". Anyway, I have never heard any people in HK borrowing 'kill' before. The most natural way would be for them to say "saai fei lam" - to waste film and not to kill film (film are not living things).

This post has been edited by xng: 17 October 2005 - 10:52 PM

[tongyan]

xng, on Oct 17 2005, 10:50 PM, said:

1. The only way to find out is to ask someone in HK now to go and ask the 'ke le fe' what they eat for lunch. If it is not curry, then this is the wrong answer.

3. Not everything have to rhyme (this is not a poem or a song), coffee is "ka fe" and it didn't rhyme. File is "fai lo" so if they want to approximate kill it should be "ke lo". Usually you don't have 2 sounds for the same approximation. "fei lam" would be abbreviated to "fei" if I take your example from "bus". Anyway, I have never heard any people in HK borrowing 'kill' before. The most natural way would be for them to say "saai fei lam" - to waste film and not to kill film (film are not living things).

1. That is not even a plausible way to find out the answer. Even if I went back to HK this christmas (which I will) and go ask a 'ke le fe' what they eat for lunch - whether or not they eat curry for lunch now does not matter. The term 'ke le fe' was coined probably in the 80s or probably earlier and it was representative of what the 'ke le fe' were served at that time. You can't use what people eat now to discern what others were eating 20-30 years ago.

3. It's true that not everything has to rhyme and like in the cases you have described, they don't. However, rhymes do occur often, especially in Cantonese, and you cannot just rule it out just because it doesn't happen all the time. In everyday colloquialisms, language rules or conventions aren't as strictly filed and terms are coined that have a jingle to it or a certain mnemonic to it that people can easily remember. Contriving the sound to comform with a rhyme would make people remember it easier.

In your example of 'fei lam' an abbreviation would, in general terms, seem to be 'fei' - nobody disputes this. However, there are two reasons, one more compelling than the other, why it couldn't be 'fei' in the context of this term. (1) (less compelling) 'fei' might confuse this term with "fare" which, I might note, is a monosyllabic approximation. (2) (more compelling) 'fei' would make the term, 'ke-le-fei' which just wouldn't sound right, for the reasons cited in the previous paragraph. why not alter the sound a little just so that the three terms would rhyme? it's easier to remember and has a jingle to it that common folk can relate to.

Just because you have never heard of any people in HK borrowing 'kill' before doesn't mean that they couldn't borrow it for this term. Have you ever heard of people borrowing 'carefree' outside of the context of 'ke-le-fe'? I sure haven't but that doesn't mean they can't do it here.

And finally, the natural way to say "saai fei lam" is obviously the correct way if you were talking about the act of wasting film but the reasoning behind this term is that it is describing a person, not an act. Naturally, the descriptor for a person who does a certain act will differ from the descriptor which describes that particular act.