Annual Chinese Hot Words Published in 2008

iamyihe · 发表于 2009-2-7 18:48

GOOGLE, the world's top search engine, is getting into the end of year spirit. Last week, the company published its annual rankings of China's new hot words. These words reflect major events that took place during the past year. Here are the top 10:

1. 山寨copycatting
This Chinese term literally refers to the mountain strongholds of bandits. First borrowed to describe rip-off products, it has evolved to refer also to homemade products, such as video parodies of movies.

2. 囧be sunk ;sunken
This is an ancient Chinese character, pronounced jing. It means "light shining through a window". Young Chinese use it to express embarrassment, or a bad mood. Look at the character. Doesn't it look like a disappointed face?

3. 很黄很暴力very pornographic, very violent
During a CCTV interview about a new Internet censorship regulation, a girl said that an uncensored Web page once popped up on her computer. She called it "very pornographic, very violent". Some believe the girl was told to say it by CCTV, so it is now used to mock the way the network covers news.

4. 槑nuts
Pronounced méi, the word is a variant of the word for "梅". But it also looks like a double version of the character 呆 (dai), which means stupid. So netizens have borrowed it to mean "very silly or very stupid".

5. 叉腰肌Psoas muscle
Xie Yalong, the former head of the Chinese Football Association, once criticized women players, saying they have weak Psoas muscles. (This is the muscle that links the trunk to the legs; it's important for motion.) However, nobody, including the players, knew where the muscle is. This quote is now used to mock Xie, who was recently removed from his position.

6. 打酱油get some soy sauce
When a person in Guangzhou was asked to give his opinion of the ##被过滤## scandal involving Hong Kong star Edison Chen (Chen Guanxi), the man answered, "It is none of my business. I am just out to get some soy sauce." People have since begun using the words to mean "it's none of my business".

7. 泡良族 pick-up artists
This expression refers to men who seduce married women.

8. 凤凰男Phoenix man
This expression refers to a man who grew up poor and in the countryside, but later moved to a big city and married a city girl. Due to the couple's different backgrounds and habits, they often encounter problems.

9. 做人不能太CNN don't be too CNN
It emerged in resp##被过滤##e to foreign media's coverage of Tibet. Many Chinese thought it was biased. It gained more popularity after CNN commentator Jack Cafferty's rude talk of China.

10. 三个俯卧撑three push-ups
A girl in Guizhou was rumored to have been killed by the relatives of local police officials. However, a local government official claimed the girl's boyfriend said the girl had jumped into the river when he was doing push-ups. The popularity of the term signals people's doubts over the story.