Virtual China

Following up on the previous post, the Etymology of 顶你个肺 ("Hit Your Lung"), Sinodrom pointed out that the comments section of the original Chinese blog post suggests an alternative, more widely accepted, explanation for the term.

A translation of the first comment:

The writer is wrong, I don’t know if your friend is a real Guangdong native, "我顶你个肺！" ("I hit your lung") is a pretty common phrase, you can use it as an expression of anger, or just something on the side, it’s not big deal saying it to friends. Don’t worry - in normal circumstances  "我顶你个肺！" definitely has no pornographic association. Now to turn to the meaning to  "顶!" ("hit!").

When we say a person is being difficult, you can say they’re “顶心杉” ("hit/block heart fir"), like having a large fir tree blocking your heart, it’s obviously painful. Blocking both the heart and the lung will make it hard to breathe, so it’s like being frustrated, and thus, you can say that person is deliberately “顶心顶肺” ("block heart block lung") you.

For example: bastard’s always 顶心顶肺 (block heart block lung)!

So it somehow evolves into “顶你个肺” ("hit/block your lung"), meaning that the person is driving you nutes. Then it became a general word for an emotional outburst, without the cursing connotation. Sometimes you just use the abbreviated form, “顶~”, even saying this though is not very elegant (or polite).

Look for comments under original Chinese post.

UPDATED: See part two of this post here.

PostShow links to 十八摸’s article on the etymology of “我顶你个肺” ("I hit your lung"), which I’ve translated below:

”’In the Crazy Stone 《疯狂的石头》movie, the catchphrase of the Hong Kong bandit in the movie, “我顶你个肺” ("I hit your lung") has come into vogue. No longer confined within the Cantonese regions in GuangZhou, the phrase is now spoken by many people in non-Cantonese areas. On the news two days ago, in some office, someone said “我顶你个肺”, which provoked the boss so much that the boss immediately prohibited the staff from "saying any lines from movies at work."

This phrase has been in the airwaves for a while, but I never really knew what it meant, just that it was a pretty foul phrase for cursing someone. I thought to myself, the Cantonese people "sure are classy," that to curse someone in their dialect, instead of relying on lewd slang, directed the curse at the lung. Or perhaps the "lung" is a special spot in the eyes of the Cantonese? Or maybe the Cantonese are born with special feelings for their "lungs"?

Last night I had dinner with Old Yu, and Old Yu cleared up my misunderstandings.

Apparently, “我顶你个肺” ("I hit your lung") is a variation of the rude Cantonese term “我顶你 fai hai (广州音)” ("I hit your ‘fai hai’ (phonetic spelling of Cantonese dialect)). In this case, the "fai" sounds like the Chinese “块” (kuai4) sound, as in the measure word. The word "hai" refers to a part of the female body, which in the Northern dialect would be called the “逼” (bi1). This phrase then was originally very vulgar, but as people said it more and more, they decided that the "fai hai" portion was too bothersome, and cut the two words down to a simple "肺" ("lung"; fei4) sound. (This truncation of two words was adopted across the nation.

Looking at it now, I guess good ol’ GuangZhou wasn’t able to avoid being vulgar. Deconstructing this word sure is no fun, especially for my female comrades; after knowing what “我顶你个肺” ("I hit your lung") means, and even if they can’t resist saying it, won’t be able to say it so boldly.”’

Link to original article in Chinese.

P.S. To translate this article, I found out that " 下三路" means "taking the path of pornography" from here.