Pig-pulling contest? What?! (POSSIBLY NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK OR MIXED COMPANY)

Language Learning Chinese
1

Very recently–in fact, today–I was reading an English-language discussion of Taiwan politics on another site. During the discussion, one participant said to the other, “Another LDS from you.”

I thought, “Well, that’s certainly grossly unfair–digressing far from the issues in order to attack one’s opponent’s religious beliefs. Besides, how does he even know that the other fellow is a Mormon?”

So I did some Googling, limited to the same site, using the attacked person’s username and the letters LDS, looking for any reference to the Mormon faith of the person in question. Lo and behold, I found an earlier post in which the very same person who was recently attacked for being a Mormon accuses his opponent of “offering LDS to the opposition.”

So the person who was attacked for being a Mormon had earlier attacked someone else for being a Mormon. I thought, “I guess that means he’s not a Mormon. Maybe this isn’t even about the Mormon religion.” Then I thought, “Hmm, this somehow sorta reminds me of that LP thing from 2004.”

And that led to the thought that LDS might be an abbreviation for some Taiyu/Minnan phrase.

So I Googled around, resorting to Google Translate a lot for help in coming up with search terms, and I found this definition:

LDS=攪豬屎。不懂就被下一代投票幹掉了！

Jiǎo zhū shǐ. It looks like “stir pig feces.”

I got that here: 現在年輕人的俚語... @ 牛之家 :: 痞客邦 ::

After plugging that into Google Translate, I saw that that interpretation made sense of the LDS comments. But I also saw that the hanyu pinyin abbreviation would be JZS, and the Wade-Giles one would be CCS (chiǎo chū shǐh). So I was even more suspicious that LDS was not Mandarin, but rather Taiyu/Minnan.

So I Googled around some more, and I learned that 攪豬屎 was a literal interpretation of 拉豬賽 (lā zhū sài, “pull pig contest”?), according to this person:
http://city.udn.com/51944/2127931

But a hanyu pinyin abbreviation of that would be LZS, and I guess a Wade-Giles one would be LCS (lā chū sài).

Anyway, I still don’t know what the unabbreviated LDS would sound like in Taiyu/Minnan. ‘Cause as much as I don’ know Chinese, I really don’ know Taiyu.

So how’s y’all’s holiday goin’? I’m guessing it’s more exciting than mine. :slight_smile:

2

Going pretty good! My wife says it’s “la di sai” in Taiwanese, but outside of it being “a way to scold someone” couldn’t offer any other insight into its usage.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the info, TG! And please thank your wife for me, too!

4

One of the discussion participants referred to earlier finally said it in unabbreviated form:

. . . it is just la de sai. . . .

I think the two expressions are the same; I don’t think the “i” and the “e” make a real difference. Of course, there’s also the matter of which of the five to seven tones are used in the words. Five to seven tones: And I think Mandarin is intimidating.

5

By the way it would mean “stirring pig shit” in Minnan. So I guess the connotation is similar to “stirring up shit” in English?

6

That’s my guess, too.

7

From what my coworkers at the factory told me (and they use this term very frequently), it’s like accusing somebody of talking bullshit. You’re right, stirring pig shit.

8

Yang_Gui_Zi, I’m starting to lean in the “talking BS” direction now, because when I Googled that phrase tonight, I got the impression from some pages that it could refer to something other than just talk aimed at causing trouble, which is what I originally thought it meant. I guess it could mean more than one thing, though.

There seems to be some variation in the characters used. So far, in addition to 拉豬賽, I’ve seen 拉豬塞, 拉豬屎, 喇豬賽, 喇豬塞, and 喇豬屎.

9

Yeah, from my experience with the coworkers is they tend to say it instead of 亂講 (luan jiang). And it’s definitely situations where “bullshit” would be an appropriate fit.

1 Like