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With notes on 兑, 說 / 説, 悦, 銳, 脱.

From Stephen Tschudi:

A colleague was watching a tuōkǒu xiù 脱口秀 ("talk show") online today, and was shocked when a well-known actress did not pronounce "duìxiàn 兑现" (vb. "cash [a check]; fulfill / honor [a promise / commitment]") correctly. She was even more shocked when, in the audience chat that was scrolling across the screen, an audience member typed "dui 现不是 yue 现“ (no tone marks). The Pinyin leaped out at her visually. I bet there aren't too many examples of this mixture of Pinyin into daily discourse. Just an interesting tidbit! (I asked her for the source but she was watching too casually to remember.)

Already at least ten or fifteen years ago, I was familiar with the expression zuòxiù 作秀 ("make a show"), so I knew that xiù 秀 ("elegant; excellent") could be a Sinographic transcription for "show".  Now, with tuōkǒu xiù 脱口秀 ("talk show"), where tuōkǒu 脱口 (lit., "take / slip off from the mouth") is a disyllabic transcription of monosyllabic English "talk", we have a two word, three syllable expression in Mandarin that is a direct transcription of a two word two syllable expression in English.

The reason people are prone to misread the "duì 兑" of "duìxiàn 兑现" is because this same character, which is not of particularly high frequency (#2424 out of a list of 9933 characters [source]), actually has three different readings:

1. duì ("convert, commute; exchange; weigh; add; be ready to risk one's life; one of the eight trigrams [☱ ] in the I ching; west[ern]")

2. yuè = 悦 ("happy")

3. ruì = 锐 ("sharp")

The second character is related to 1. shuō 說 / 説 (“to say; to speak; to explain; theory; etc.”), but which may also be pronounced 2. shuì ("persuade"), 3. yuè ("happy; delighted"), and tuō 脫 / 脱 (“to free; to relieve”).  The plethora of pronunciations and meanings for 說 / 説 may be better understood by taking into account these etymological notes:

All of the pronunciations of this character are in the same word family derived from a root *lo meaning “to loosen; to relax” (Schuessler, 2007). STEDT compares it to Proto-Sino-Tibetan *g/s-lwat (“free; release; slip; dislocate”).

Pronunciation 1 is derived by causative devoicing of 悅 (OC *lod, “to relax; to be delighted”) (pronunciation 3).

Pronunciation 2 is probably the exoactive of pronunciation 1.

(source)

The basic etymon for this word family is 兑 / 兑 (MSM duì / yuè / ruì; see above).

Glyph origin

In the oracle bone script, it is a ideogrammic compound (會意): 八 (“speech; breath”) + 口 (“mouth”) + 人 (“person”) – speech; original character of 說 (OC *hljod, “to speak”). It is also a phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *l'oːds): phonetic 㕣 (OC *lon) + semantic 人 (“person”).

Alternatively, 八 may be interpreted as smile lines above the mouth (Gao Hongjin) or as meaning “to divide” (Lin Yiguang, i.e. the mouth is divided when smiling); in either case, the character would be the original character of 悅 (OC *lod, “pleased”).

Etymology 1

• Middle Sinitic: /duɑi^H/

(Baxter–Sagart): /*lˤot-s/

(Zhengzhang): /*l'oːds/

Etymology 2

For pronunciation and definitions of 兌 – see 悦 (“pleased; contented; gratified; to be pleasing to; etc.”). (This character, 兌, is an ancient form of 悦.)

STEDT compares it to Proto-Sino-Tibetan *g/s-lwat (“free; release; slip; dislocate”). Cognate with 愉 (OC *lo, “happy; pleased”), 說 (OC *hljods, “to speak; to explain”), 脫 (OC *l̥ʰoːd, *l'oːd, “to take off (clothes); to escape”), 偷 (OC *l̥ʰoː, “to steal”).

• Middle Sinitic: /jiuᴇt̚/

(Baxter–Sagart): /*lot/

(Zhengzhang): /*lod/

(Source)

Etymology 3

For pronunciation and definitions of 兌 – see 鋭 (“sharp; keen; acute; pointed; 14th tetragram of the Taixuanjing; "penetration"; etc.”). (This character, 兌, is an ancient form of 鋭.)

• Middle Sinitic: /jiuᴇi^H/

(Baxter–Sagart): /*lot-s/

(Zhengzhang): /*lods/

(Source)

(Source for information on 兑, except for the MS and OS reconstructions of Etymology 2 and 3, which are separately specified)

It's a long way from the Oracle Bone forms of 兑 to dui / yue, but it has happened.  Digraphia lives.  Bigly.

 

Selected readings

• "Chinglish in English?" (5/8/14)
• "The Westernization of Chinese" (9/6/12)
• "English in Chinese: over了, out了, 太low了, 太out了" (10/25/15)
• "A complete transcription and translation of Linlin's Hybrid Chinese-English monologue" (9/12/12)
• "The actuality of emerging digraphia" (3/10/19)
• "Creeping Romanization in Chinese" (8/30/12)
• "Nerd, geek, PK: Creeping Romanization (and Englishization), part 2" (3/5/13)
• "The Westernization of Chinese" (9/6/12)
• "Creeping English in Chinese" (1/23/17)
• "Character amnesia and the emergence of digraphia" (9/25/13)
• "Substituting Pinyin for unknown Chinese characters " (9/3/13)
• "A child's substitution of Pinyin (Romanization) for characters " (11/9/14)
• "Dumpling ingredients and character amnesia " (10/18/14)
• "The naturalness of emerging digraphia" (7/28/17)
• "Digraphia and intentional miswriting" (3/12/15)
• "Pinyin as subversive subtext" (3/17/17)
• "YouCool" (3/7/08)
• "Official digraphia" (9/13/18)
• "Biscriptal juxtaposition in Chinese, part 3" (4/24/17)
• "Biscriptal juxtaposition in Chinese, part 2" (10/15/14)
• "Biscriptal juxtaposition in Chinese" (8/17/14)
• "Zhao C: a Man Who Lost His Name" (2/27/09)
• "A trilingual, biscriptal note (with emoji)" (2/5/17)
• "East Asian multilingual pop culture" (10/31/17)
• "'Let's' in Chinese " (10/19/17)
• "Keep on -inging " (10/30/17)
• "A New Morpheme in Mandarin" (4/26/11)
• Morpheme(s) of the Year " (12/17/11) (English > Japanese > Chinese)
• "Zhao C: a Man Who Lost His Name" (2/27/09)
• "A trilingual, biscriptal note (with emoji)" (2/5/17)
• "Digraphia and intentional miswriting" (3/12/15)
• "I don't feel OK" (12/27/18)
• "Sino-English graphic tour de force" (12/2018)
• "Creeping Romanization in Chinese, part 4" (12/15/18)
• "English as an official language in Taiwan" (12/8/18)
• "I don't feel OK" (12/27/18)
• "Pinyin without Chinese characters" (7/5/15)
• "Pinyin for the Prez" (10/25/18)

October 24, 2020 @ 7:49 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Diglossia and digraphia, Reconstructions, Transcription

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