![\"\u99ac\u99ac\u864e\u864e](\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/mamahuhu.gif\")
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In Mandarin Chinese there’s an idiomatic expression that translates literally as “horse horse tiger tiger”. What do you think it means?<\/p>\n
There is some interesting discussion about this idiom on the podcast Global Pillage<\/a>, where they discuss idioms and customs from around the world. Suggestions for the meaning of this idiom included “social classes don’t mix”, “only date within your tax bracket”, “you wait for a bus for ages, and three come along at once”, “six of one, half a dozen of the other”<\/p>\n This expression is written \u9a6c\u9a6c\u864e\u864e [\u99ac\u99ac\u864e\u864e] (m\u01cem\u01ceh\u01d4h\u01d4) and means “careless\uff0ccasual, vague, not so bad, so-so, tolerable, fair” and is a reduplicated version of \u9a6c\u864e [\u99ac\u864e] (m\u01ceh\u01d4) “careless, sloppy, negligent, skimp”. <\/p>\n Here are some examples of how it’s used:<\/p>\n – \u4f60\u7684\u4e2d\u6587\u8bb2\u5f97\u597d\u68d2\u554a (N\u01d0 de zh\u014dngw\u00e9n ji\u01ceng de h\u01ceo b\u00e0ng a) = You speak Chinese well – \u90a3\u5bb6\u9910\u9986\u7684\u670d\u52a1\u9a6c\u9a6c\u864e\u864e (N\u00e0 ji\u0101 c\u0101ngu\u01cen de f\u00faw\u00f9 m\u01cem\u01ceh\u01d4h\u01d4) = The service at that restaurant is so-so The origins of this phrase are uncertain. The earliest known use was during the Yuan Dynasty (1271\u20131368). It might be related to \u6a21\u7cca (m\u00f3hu – unclear, fuzzy) or \u9ebb\u7cca (m\u00e1h\u00fa – careless), or it might have been borrowed from the Manchu mahu<\/em> (wry, face) or lah\u016b<\/em> (not adept, unskilled [especially at hunting and dealing with livestock]; scoundrel, hoodlum).<\/p>\n I remember reading somewhere, though I can’t find any confirmation, that this phrase is borrowed from the Sanskrit word \u092e\u094b\u0939 (moha), which means ‘magic employed to bewilder, error, bewilderment, foolishness, wonder, infatuation, delusion, confusion, amazement, distraction, inability to discriminate, perplexity, ignorance, loss of consciousness, hallucination’. Has anybody else read or heard this theory?<\/p>\n Here’s an alternative story about its origins<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: MDBG Dictionary<\/a>, Wiktionary<\/a>, Sinoglot<\/a>, Sanskrit Dictionary for Spoken Sanskrit<\/a>, Learn a Chinese Charachter a Day<\/a>, StakeExchange<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Mandarin Chinese there’s an idiomatic expression that translates literally as “horse horse tiger tiger”. What do you think it means? There is some interesting discussion about this idiom on the podcast Global Pillage, where they discuss idioms and customs from around the world. Suggestions for the meaning of this idiom included “social classes don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,104,125,10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese","category-english","category-idioms","category-language","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– \u9a6c\u9a6c\u864e\u864e\uff0c\u9a6c\u9a6c\u864e\u864e (M\u01cem\u01ceh\u01d4h\u01d4, m\u01cem\u01ceh\u01d4h\u01d4) = Just so-so<\/p>\n
\n– \u4ed6\u9a6c\u9a6c\u864e\u864e\u5730\u505a\u4e8b (T\u0101 m\u01cem\u01ceh\u01d4h\u01d4 de zu\u00f2sh\u00ec) = He does his work carelessly
\n– \u4ed6\u8fd9\u4e2a\u4eba\u505a\u4e8b\u6bd4\u8f83\u9a6c\u864e (T\u0101 zh\u00e8ge r\u00e9n zu\u00f2sh\u00ec b\u01d0ji\u00e0o m\u01ceh\u01d4) = He\u2019s a sloppy \/ rather careless person<\/p>\n