Hello all

I've started editing a new list of "fixed expressions" - aka cliches - without knowing which
it can be pretty painful getting through written
Chinese. Examples:

受益匪浅 - receive-benefit-bandit-shallow
which seems to mean "benefit（ed） greatly"

畅所欲言 - speak freely

无所不能 - all-powerful?

突飞猛进 - advance in leaps and bounds.

The overlap with JWW1066's recent list of proverbs seems small. However, many are already in Skritter's database. Whence came they there? Is there an existing list?

When used as an adverb, 匪 means ‘not’.

True, but it seems these "adverbial" uses occur only in 固定词组 ：-) In the "wild" is it not always "bandit"? And here, it seems to be possible to read it both ways:

匪夷所思 = "fantastic / freak (accident etc.)"

(bandits - non-Chinese - what (they) - think)

(not - usual - what (one) - thinks) as suggested by

http://chengyu.itlearner.com/cy3/3064.html

The 匪 in 匪夷所思 and 受益匪浅 does indeed mean "not" so in essence you can read it as "not usual thinking” and "receive benefit not shallow".

I understand this has to do with the practice of 假借/"borrowing" characters with similar pronunciation in ancient Chinese, since many writers were primarily concerned with getting the sound right rather than the character. So in this case 匪 would be a 假借词 borrowing from 非. The article on 百度 http://baike.baidu.com/view/261922.htm seems to confirm this. There's also a very fascinating bit on the meaning of the 匪 character at the bottom of the baidu article under "历史典故", if anyone is interested in that sort of thing.

In modern Chinese obviously people are a bit more careful about what characters they use and the usage of 匪 is mostly limited to its 盗匪 meaning, but since 成语 are passed down from ancient Chinese they retain their original form.

These "adverbial" uses do *not* occur only in 固定词组, but instead are quite frequently found in classical prose. The following link http://www.longwiki.net/%E5%8C%AA contains a few more examples of these uses. Of course, the meaning of any word is up to the reader’s interpretation. One can keep on thinking that 匪 can only mean “bandit”. But in order to advance one’s knowledge in the language and be able to read anything other than modern Chinese, one has to acknowledge that there may be more than one meaning attached to a character and learning those extra and unusual meanings is essential to reading classical prose.

By the way, the original meaning of 匪 is “bamboo basket”, and the meaning of “bandit” is a rather recent association with the character. The explanation of this character given by the《康熙字典》(attached in the above link) does not even have the meaning “bandit” in it.

The above link does not seem to work. See if this one works:
http://www.longwiki.net/匪

Thanks, both, the links are Most Interesting - sadly the Bank Holiday is over and time is becoming scarce once again. I did manage to look through digilypse's link though, what a story.

@pts - I should have been more careful about what I meant by the phrase "in the wild" - I meant in common speech. I do agree with your viewpoint!

Anyway, this rather intriguing digression has rather obscured the point that my original question remains unanswered.

What comprises the database that Skritter uses? Is there a core bit, and stuff that users contribute? Can I change an entry that is already in the database, except by reporting an error when it is presented to me?

Thanks for the clarification, pts. I suppose if the 匪盗 meaning is recent that would render the "explanation" on the 百度 page rather meaningless.

pts： 龙维基 is fantastic - thanks！

Here is the other 成语 list:

http://www.skritter.com/vocab/list?list=agVza3JpdHIWCxINVm9jYWJMaXN0SW5mbxizzZUFDA

There was a core bit that we defined for the original set of vocab lists we needed (a few textbooks + HSK), but everything after that has been added as needed, mostly by users. You guys add about a hundred words a day, both for your vocab lists and for your queues.

You can currently submit definition corrections via the feedback tab on the practice page or, if you're in the alpha test, just edit it when you see it on the practice page and leave the "submit as correction" checkbox checked.

@digilypse The longwike also stated that 匪 is a rebus for 非, so there should be no argument for this point. But 匪’s original meaning is not “bandit” but instead a “bamboo basket”. The 非 inside the 匚 actually represents the patten of the bamboo forming the basket, instead of something to be destroyed, and this makes the very interesting "历史典故" unfounded.