Diu (Cantonese)
 |
The written form of diu commonly seen in Hong Kong. |
Diu (
Traditional Chinese: 屌; Hong Kong coinage: ';
Jyutping: diu2;
Pinyin: diǎo) is a common profanity in
Cantonese. It may be regarded as the Cantonese equivalent of the English
fuck. The word is sometimes referred jocularly as one of the Five Great Profanities of the Clan Door (門氏"傑)
1 of Cantonese.
Diu is indeed an old word in the vernacular Chinese language. Anyone familiar with the classic novel
Water Margin should know the word by heart, where it is written as 鳥 (which indeed means "
birds") and used as an emphatic
adjective with a function similar to the English "fucking", "bloody" or "god damned". For instance,
武松指著"門神，說"：「休言你這廝鳥蠢漢！景陽岡上那隻大蟲，也只三拳兩腳，我兀自"死了！量你這個直得"麼！快交割還他！但遲了些個，再是一"，便一發結果了你廝！」-《水滸傳》廿九回
Diu means primarily the
penis. It is written as 屌 when used in this sense, but usually as 鳥 when used as an emphatic adjective. For example,
木寸、馬户、尸巾，你"我是個「村驢屌」？-《西廂記》第"本第三折
屌 has its female equivalent 屄 (pronounced
bī in Mandarin) in the traditional Chinese written language. In the
Yuan Dynasty operas, the word, meaing penis, is sometimes written as 頹, for instance,
我見了些"前程俏女娘，見了些鐵心腸"子漢，便一"里孤眠，我也直"頹！-《救風塵》第一折
The written form is mainly seen in Hong Kong, for example, on
graffiti. Its creation may be due to the ignorance of the character 屌. In Cantonese, it is used as a
transitive verb meaning to
copulate. In a manner similar to the
English word
fuck, it is also used to express dismay, disgrace, disapproval and so on. For example, someone may shout "diu nei!" ("fuck you!" or "fuck off!") at somebody when he or she finds that other person annoying.
"Diu nei lo mo!" (屌你老母) or "Diu nei lo mei" ("fuck your mother") is a
highly offensive profanity in Cantonese when directed against a specific person instead of used as a general exclamation. However, in contrast to the English phrase "Fuck your mother", which implies
"You fuck your mother", the Cantonese phrase "Diu nei lo mo" implies
"I fucked your mother".
Due to the absence of in the
Big-5 character set on computers, 屌 is used instead by some Hong Kongers, though they may think is the traditional character. The
Government of Hong Kong has extended
Unicode and the Big-5 character set with the
Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set, which includes Chinese characters only used in Cantonese, including the Five Great Profanities. The government explained that the reason for these characters being included is to allow for the
Hong Kong Police to record
criminal suspects' statements.
In English, "damn" gives birth to its
euphemism "darn"; similarly in Cantonese, especially Hong Kong Cantonese,
diu has
yiu (妖) and
tiu (挑) as its euphemism. Some people, however, are not aware that the variations, which they use quite casually, are related to the profane
diu.
On a related note, the character 屌 (diǎo), which is equivalent to the English slang term "dick" in Mandarin Chinese, is also commonly used by young people in Taiwan to mean "cool". In this context it is not censored on TV broadcasts.
# The five profanities are said to be Diu, Gau (𨳊 meaning penis), Nen (𨶙 meaning also penis), Tsat (𨳍 meaning again penis), Hai (閪 meaing
vulva), each of the five coined characters has "door" (門) as its semantic element, which might symbolize the vulva, as the "door" to the female genitalia. Some use the sentence 小狗能"鞋 (
lit. small dogs can brush shoes), which rhymes with the five profane characters, as a
mnemonic to remember them. In school, 'Diu' as a profanity, is banned. And any student who says this word would probably be punished, if heard by teachers.
*
Puk Kai*
Fuck*
Mandarin slang*
Singapore sexual slang*
Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set*
List of Cantonese-related topics*
Uncle Bus*
廣州話粗口"究網 (in Traditional Chinese)
*
広東語の粗口 (in Japanese)
*
粗口字義與應"zh-yue:屌
