{"id":28512,"date":"2016-09-28T17:46:57","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T22:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=28512"},"modified":"2016-10-02T14:31:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T19:31:45","slug":"the-perils-of-7-and-9-in-cantonese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=28512","title":{"rendered":"The perils of \"7\" and \"9\" in Cantonese"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=28044\">Here we go again<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>\"Samsung\u2019s Galaxy On7 goes official\" (Marketing-Interactive, 9\/28\/16)<\/p>\n<div>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">As we\u2019ve\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketing-interactive.com\/the-curious-case-of-number-7\/\" target=\"_blank\">covered<\/a>\u00a0shortly two weeks ago,\u00a0the pronunciation of \u201c7\u2033\u00a0sounds like \u201cpenis\u201d in Cantonese, and the latest Samsung Galaxy On7 launch has once again stirred up discussion on the internet in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<p>The Cantonese pronunciation of \u00a0\u201cOn9\u2033 [sic: there seems to be a mix-up here] is similar to slang meaning \u201cstupid\u201d, and many are saying the new release is a crossover between the two slang words.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Cf. \"<a title=\"Permanent link to Does the new iPhone 7 slogan mean \" href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=28044\" rel=\"bookmark\">Does the new iPhone 7 slogan mean \"precisely penis\" in Chinese?<\/a>\" (9\/9\/16)<\/p>\n<p>Here I feel obliged to quote one of Rich's comments to the latter post:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">When iPhone 9 and Note 9 release, we will bump into the same problem in Cantonese.\u00a0 \u4e5d also sounds like another obscenity in Cantonese, which means \"cunning dick\".<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">This is 9 = This is \u9ce9 (in Cantonese). This is a dick\/this is cunning.<br \/>\n9. This is 9 = \u9ce9. This is \u9ce9. Dick. This is a dick. \/ Cunning. This is cunning.<br \/>\nIt even sounds worse for Samsung Note 9<br \/>\nNote 9 sounds like \u788c\u9ce9, which also means penis.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Numbers to avoid in Cantonese<br \/>\n4 = \u6b7b = dead<br \/>\n7 = \u67d2 = dumb (\u67d2 means penis literally. But in fact it means dumb)<br \/>\n9 = \u9ce9 = dick<br \/>\n19 = \u6fd5\u9ce9 = cunning<br \/>\n24 = \u6613\u6b7b = easy to die<br \/>\n67 = \u788c\u67d2 = dumb<br \/>\n69 = \u788c\u9ce9 = dick<\/p>\n<p>The takeaway from this is that, in naming products in Cantonese, you've got to be very careful with your numbers.\u00a0 Otherwise you might open yourself to 19 ridicule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here we go again: \"Samsung\u2019s Galaxy On7 goes official\" (Marketing-Interactive, 9\/28\/16) As we\u2019ve\u00a0covered\u00a0shortly two weeks ago,\u00a0the pronunciation of \u201c7\u2033\u00a0sounds like \u201cpenis\u201d in Cantonese, and the latest Samsung Galaxy On7 launch has once again stirred up discussion on the internet in Hong Kong. The Cantonese pronunciation of \u00a0\u201cOn9\u2033 [sic: there seems to be a mix-up here] [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,15,216,250,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-and-advertising","category-names","category-numbers","category-slang","category-topolects"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28512"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28608,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28512\/revisions\/28608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}