[quote=“Toasty”][quote=“Dragonbones”][quote=“jdsmith”]“kao” also means “fuck” in Taiwanese. So now we have, “You fuck bread.” And I still don’t know what that means.
Although, as insults go, sodomizing bread is a good one.
Where’s Chewy? [/quote]
No, kao3 is bake. Kao4 is f*ck (right?). Totally different tones, or am I mistaken?[/quote]
I always thought of kao bay kao boo as meaning I cry for your mother and father (because you are so stupid).[/quote]
Well, the tones may be different, but slang is also about twisting existing words into new meanings, no?
I’m reasonable sure the kid in question didn’t have any Taiwanese secondary meanings in mind when he uttered his insult. A factor that makes this almost a certainty, is the fact that the majority of kids in that class (including the offender) come from Hakka families as opposed to Minnanese.
[quote=“puiwaihin”]Hmm. Bread comes in loaves, right? And some buns are long and thin. I would wager I know the anatomical reference being suggested.
(FYI, my Chinese in the area of insults is not good.)[/quote]
That’s pretty creative. Actually, when I first heard the insult, I got the gist of the meaning correct; just the reference was wrong. I thought bread was a metaphor for one’s brain. In this interpretation, one’s brain would be baked and, thus the person would be mentally challenged. Alas, no. It’s been confirmed a few times. The slur is referring solely to the folks employed to bake bread in a special bakery. There is no other built in metaphor in this nasty little expression.
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