介绍:
Lincoln: Now we take a look at some of the most important words from 2015. Wu You, maybe you can enlighten us a little bit there.
WY: One of the most popular words of 2015 for this magazine has [been] the 'hands-chopping people'. As e-commerce booms in China, many shopping addicts swear to chop off their hands if they buy any more goods online.
Lincoln: That sounds very strange. What is the next one?
WY: The 'Face score', which is a word that describes one’s facial beauty, so they will not directly say, “OK, you’re cute”, or “you’re pretty” – they will say “OK, you have a high face score”.
Lincoln: And do you know the word 'bae'? (Michael: Oh, right, yeah) It’s spelled B, A, E, and it’s supposed to stand for 'before everything', so if you really like a person... name a person you like, Wu You. Who’s your favourite singer?
WY: Favourite singer? Adele.
Lincoln: OK, so then you can go, “Oh, Adele is 'bae'" – Adele is before everything else, or you can presumably use it for your significant other.
Michael: I thought 'bae' was like a contraction of babe?
Lincoln: A lot of people think that, but no. It’s actually just 'before everything else', so you can just [say] “Oh, something is bae”.
Michael: Oh, well, that’s me told.
Lincoln: Yeah, that’s the thing. I tend to keep up with social media.
Michael: Clearly I’m out of touch.
Lincoln: 'On fleek' – have you heard this one?
Michael: Absolutely not. What’s that?
Lincoln: If something’s 'on fleek', it’s particularly on point, it’s very well done.
Michael: How do you spell that?
Lincoln: F, L, E, E, K. On fleek. There was a video of a young woman saying that her eyebrows were on fleek, and people were like, “Oh, that’s really nice”, so that’s a really big on as well. Wu You, what are some of the other ones on the list?
WY: OK, the other very interesting one is 'Brain hole'. Do you know anything about this?
Michael: “Brain hole”. It sounds…I don’t know – it sounds negative, if you have a hole in your brain. I don’t think I’d want to be called a brain hole.
WY: So don’t be scared or offended. It actually means you are very creative. It means you have dug a hole in my brain and you have inspired me a little bit.
Lincoln: That sounds really scary. [You’ve] dug a hole in my brain, in which you’ve inspired me?
WY: That means you made spare spaces in my brain!
Lincoln: Do you need any spare spaces in your brain, Wu You?
WY: Just think out of the box!
Lincoln: OK. What else have you got?
WY: Something else, just like capricious or willful, which is often used in the sentence, “A rich man is absolutely capricious or willful”. The term was made popular during a press conference at this year’s annual Two Sessions period.
Lincoln: One of my other favourite ones that is used on social media a lot is 'basic'. To refer to something as basic means it’s quite low status, so if someone doesn’t have particularly good manners, you [could say], “Oh, that person’s a bit basic”.
Michael: Is that a buzzword, though? Or is it just the original meaning of the word having been transposed to now mean something else?
Lincoln: Yeah, well, it’s usually tacked onto another, more offensive word, but basic is the one where you usually refer to people: “Oh, that behaviour’s a bit basic, innit?” What are some of the things that you’ve become quite annoyed by, Michael? I know you’ve got quite a grumpy disposition towards social media, it seems. What are some of the words that have jumped out to you, either confusingly or annoyingly?
Michael: "Confusingly or annoyingly”(!) Erm – since I’ve been in China, I’ve been quite fascinated by some of the “Chinglish” words and phrases that you see on the internet. One that I particularly like is “No zuo no die”.
WY: What does it mean, in your opinion?
Michael: So that basically means, if you don’t do stupid things, they won’t then come back and haunt you. I just find it interesting that this is pervading in Chinese culture.
WY: And then there have been some other kind of Chinese phrases that were directly translated into English and been made popular.
Michael: Yeah. One of these: “Long time no see”. That’s actually a direct translation from Chinese into English. (Lincoln: Oh, that’s good) I never realized that until quite recently. I assumed it was, I don’t know, native American or something, but it’s a direct transliteration of the Chinese into English. Been using it all these years and I never knew that.
Lincoln: Well, hopefully this weekend will be 'on fleek', hopefully it won’t be 'basic', hopefully we’ll all enjoy ourselves.
