- 神马都是浮云
[shénmǎ dōu shì fúyún]
‘Everything is nothing’
In plain English, one would say ‘Don’t worry about it’, or ‘It’s not as important as you think’. There are several layers of linguistic inventiveness here. First of all, the character 神 is pronounced [shén], same with 什, and means ‘supernatural’, ‘heavenly’. In this way, we get 神马, which could be loosely translated as ‘pegasus’, and which sounds very close to ‘什么’. 浮云 means ‘clouds’. The idea is that what seems to be a horse in the sky, in reality, is nothing but clouds. Don’t worry about it, it’s all in your head.
- 不要迷恋哥，哥只是个传说.
[bù yào míliàn gē，gē zhǐshì ge chuánshuō]
‘Don’t be obsessed with me, I’m only a legend’.
In other words, ‘You are so far behind me, don’t even try to be like me. I’m in a completely different league’. This saying is mostly reserved for guys (hence the word ‘哥’), as well-behaved girls would not want to say something like that. I was told, however, that a flashy girl with a cigarette in her hand might say ‘不要迷恋姐，姐只是个传说’.
- 打游戏的宅男伤不起。
[dǎ yóu xì de zhái nán shāng bù qǐ]
‘Losers who play video games cannot afford to be hurt’.
伤不起 [shāng bù qǐ] is the key expression here, and it is can be used to point to the pitiful situation of anyone who is having a hard time or is doing something ‘ungelivable’. This expression resurfaced and became especially popular after a blog post (rant?) titled ‘Those who study French cannot afford to be hurt’ appeared on the Internet, and went viral. It is now a popular expression among university students who plug in all sorts of subjects in place of ‘French’. According to my Baidu search, other people who cannot afford to be hurt may include ‘girls with cold hands’, ‘girls who eat white chocolate’, ‘men who wear red underpants’, ‘girls who don’t eat breakfast’, etc. The idea, of course, is that those people have already suffered so many injuries they cannot afford to be hurt any more.
- 给力
This word means simply ‘cool’ or ‘awesome’, and is one of the most popular words on the Internet. Its opposite is 不给力, which means, respectively, ‘uncool’. These words have the English counterparts of ‘gelivable’ and ‘ungelivable’, and have been given some attention (as well as recognition) in both Chinese and English-speaking publications (see Schott’s Vocab blog on schott.blogs.nytimes.com and the front page of People’s Daily from Nov. 10, 2010).
- Out.
This word is used simply as it is, with English pronunciation or script. If someone is ‘out’ they are out of the loop or not up-to-date on the latest trends. It’s short for ‘out of time’. As Lin Tao, one of my students, said, ‘This word is so popular that if you don’t know what it means, you’re out’.
For an(other) excellent post on Chinese internet buzzwords, go to http://www.theworldofchinese.com/culture/wildcard/743-jia-junpeng.html
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