![]() My cousin, who has been living in Beijing for thirty years, said that it could mean stubborn and opinionated, as when you say zhóu 軸 and jué 倔 ("stuborn crabby"). It seems that when you describe someone as der, you can mean various negative things: reckless, foolish, stubborn…. Zihan Guo, native of Jiangxi Province, expert on the aesthetics of taste in middle period Chinese poetry " Kiss kiss / BER: Chinese photoshop victim" (7/22/14)." Morphemes without Sinographs" (11/18/21).VHM: Here we seem to be entering běnzì 本字 ("original character") territory, for which see: In Shuōwén jiězì 说文解字 (Discussing writing and explaining characters ), diān 蹎 means bá 跋 (“go by foot”). It is possible that diānr 颠儿 ("scram skedaddle") is derived from diān 蹎 ("trip / fall forward: rush about"). Maybe it literally means “gēn zài biérén pìgu hòumiàn pǎo 跟在别人屁股后面跑” ("running behind another person's ass"). There is another phrase, pìdiān pìdiān 屁颠屁颠, to describe “jǐn zhuīzhe tǎohǎo rén, bājié rén de yàngzi 紧追着讨好人,巴结人的样子” ("chasing after others to please them"). This verb is used in past (or perfect) tense and that is why it is usually diānrle 颠儿了 rather than diānr 颠儿. Another saying with similar meaning is “sāyāzile 撒丫子了”. I agree with you and I am sure you mean the verb diānrle 颠儿了, which means “get out of here quickly” or “slip away”. Jing Wen, a native of Beijing, doctorate in Egyptology ![]() Most of my informants, even those who had grown up in Beijing / Peking, told me that they had never heard it. Recently, I asked around to see if people of a younger generation (in their 20s and early 30s) knew this expression, what it meant, how to write it, and how to pronounce it. Like many authentic Pekingese colloquial expressions, it was impossible to tell for sure how to write it in Sinographs. It sounded like "der", sometimes with a trill at the end, and meant "scram skedaddle". One of the first Pekingese colloquialisms I learned (by now I know scores) was taught to me half a century ago by Iris Rulan Chao Pian (1922-2013), daughter of the distinguished linguist, Yuen Ren Chao (1892-1982).
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