Random new word of the day

[Lu 2,784]

闷酒, mènjiǔ - alcohol drunk alone while miserable

One of my all-time favourite Chinese words. The concept is a bit depressed, but it's so great that they have a specific term for it!

My random word:

汞 gong3, mercury. From an article on pollution, and as this is the second time I came across 汞 as one of the polluting substances, I'm going to try to remember it.

[muyongshi 57]

闷酒, mènjiǔ - alcohol drunk alone while miserable.

If anybody is unclear on the meaning please do not bug me as I sip my jack right now....

[madizi 0]

黑匣子 hēixiázi, black box (ie in a plane). I heard this in a report on the recent plane crash in Thailand and knew what it was from context, but don't remember seeing 匣子 before so looked it up to see what it was.

I've also found 黑盒子.

[skylee 1,910]

汞 gong3, mercury.

Another name is 水銀 shui3 yin2.

[in_lab 2]

汞 gong3, mercury. From an article on pollution

There was news a couple days ago about mercury in the flu vaccines. I would have guessed it came from that. For some words, this would make a good game: after revealing a random word, other people could guess where you came across it.

[roddy 4,806]

三八线， sānbāxiàn - the 38th Parallel which divides North and South Korea.

[heifeng 214]

IOU's

fyi, 'silver' fillings also use mercury...so many of us might just have some under our noses..hehe, but it's the vapor released during placing of the filling that you should be mostly worried about next time you go 补牙bu3ya2:mrgreen:

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缓刑huan3xing2：probation,

玩忽职守wan2hu1zhi2shou3：dereliction of one's duty's

From an article about a politician who didn't do anything about an illegally reopened mine despite receiving complaints about it. Later 3 people were killed in a mine accident.

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地雷：di4lei2 land mine, source 军事博物馆。。。hey, it was free admission while ago...

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ps..that 推截came in handy, I saw that article the same day...

[Lu 2,784]

In lab: no, it wasn't about flu vaccine. Like I said, it seems mercury is often the polluting substance.

大學錄取率 da4xue2 lu4qu3lv4, university enrollment rate, that is, the percentage of students who apply for university that actually get in. Not sure if this is also used on the mainland. In any case the rate there wouldn't be as ridiculously high as in Taiwan.

[roddy 4,806]

More phrase than word, but a useful everyday one

上刺刀！Shàng cìdāo! . . . Fix bayonets!

Culled from the first episode of 亮剑, which was more fun that I thought it was going to be. For good measure I'll throw in

番号, fānhào, the number used to identify military units.

[roddy 4,806]

Another one I came across the other day and remembered just now while eating peanuts:

齁 - to suffer a sore throat due to eating excessively salty or sugar foodstuffs.

[imron 4,967]

酡 - tuó - to have your face turn red after drinking alcohol.

[roddy 4,806]

次级房贷 - cìjífángdài - sub-prime mortgages. From a headline on the BBC's Chinese news feed, 他们因为与美国次级房贷有关的投资失利预计将减值55亿美元。

[Lu 2,784]

生物廊道 sheng1wu4 lang?dao4, wildlife tunnel. That is, that's what I assume it means. Had to search for a bit for what the hell you call such a thing in English, turned out to be quite obvious. From an article about a freeway.

[madizi 0]

Freeway? Maybe this?

[roddy 4,806]

No, they're definitely wildlife tunnels - small tunnels built under roads for animals so they don't get run over by trucks.

Mine for the day: 承重墙, chéngzhòngqiáng, load-bearing wall.

[madizi 0]

Oh, I see. What a blunder!

[heifeng 214]

I was reading something in 新京报 about the 首届全国私处健康峰会 which actually started off more interesting under this article (about the obvious)丈夫私处不洁影响妻子健康 and then this word came up...白色念珠菌of course my dictionary didn't have it so i had to wait all the way until I got to a computer to find exactly how terrible this 菌 must be...anyway it turns out to be a type of yeast and, Candida albicans, and " is one of the most commonly encountered human pathogens"...eww. I'll let you guys look this up at your leasure

白色念珠菌 bai2se4nian4zhu1jun4 Candida albicans

and there is an assortment of other fun words in this article as well...

[roddy 4,806]

煤层气, méicéngqì, coalbed gas or coalbed methane.

里海. lǐhǎi. This really messed up my parsing of a sentence and I spent a while trying to figure out what 'in-sea' oil resources were as compared to off-shore ones. And then I figure out it's the sodding Caspian Sea.

[Lu 2,784]

生物廊道 sheng1wu4 lang?dao4, wildlife tunnel

My boss corrected this to 'wildlife corridor'. Same difference, really, but Roddy, as a native speak of English, what do you call those things?

And a word:

混凝土車 hun4ning2tu3 che1 concrete truck. From a picture of one that fell into.. uhm... that would be tomorrow's word.

[heifeng 214]

just passing through....

this link seems to have mention corridors, tunnels, underpasses..etc.. roadkill

After reading it my impression of a wildlife (movement) corridor is different to a tunnel...

"the question is why? Higher vehicle speeds, heavier traffic, and wider roads definitely make crossings more treacherous. But another critical factor is where human highways cross wildlife highways. More often than not, road kill peaks where wildlife corridors such as riparian zones or strips of forest intersect with roads. "

.....yikes...i'll have to actually contribute a new word tomorrow...