A little game…?

[presumenothing]

It's already TGIF where I am, so 我们来玩玩游戏吧！

Since languages are all about connections, and everyone sees different patterns in the chaos:

Post a bit of vocab below, and I (plus anyone else who wants to play!) will reply with other bits of vocab that feel related to it!

Any shape or size of vocab goes – whether a single character or an idiom, your favourite word or one you just learned.

If you're responding, feel free to add why these words seem related to you! "They're the same shape/sound", or "it's a valid answer to 接龙ing the above", or "it came up together in one line of this show"… anything goes! 放飞创意吧！

Comments

[grayswandir]

One of my favorites: 對牛彈琴.

我爱那个！

[sam_gardener]

九牛一毛 So many cow chengyu!

Re: 我爱那个！

[reshiel]

I will try 接龙，毛骨悚然

Re: 我爱那个！

[sam_gardener]

Further 接龙， 然而不然

Re: 我爱那个！

[reshiel]

#放弃 :') 这个字好难...

(I hadn't known of 然而不然 before this, so going off of that - it reminded me of 坐井观天, where one only sees a part instead of the full picture or the truth?)

Re: 我爱那个！

[sam_gardener]

坐井观天 I like the imagery of this!
坐 -> 座
对号入座 it sounds like take your seat according to your number / put things in their correct place - but also means to take a general comment as a personal attack, assume you are being criticized? I don't know what the story is behind that and I haven't found any explanation (that I understood) when I searched for it, so it sticks in my mind.

Re: 我爱那个！

[trobadora]

对号入座 is sort of "if the shoe fits", isn't it?

Re: 我爱那个！

[grayswandir]

I hadn't heard the second ("personal attack") meaning of 对号入座. Useful to know!

I learned the other meaning (for numbered seating) from a song, so following up with a word from the next line of the lyrics: 入魔.

[presumenothing]

Ha, this one comes along with 班门弄斧 in my head for some reason (and further on to 隔岸观火, in the vein of "doing this thing in this place" format)

[grayswandir]

Okay I have to reply to both of these. XD The first one was new to me, but when I looked it up what it reminded me of was 雕虫小技.

And for the second one, 远水不救近火.

[presumenothing]

On reflection I actually have no idea what the 雕 in 雕虫小技 is doing there… but I haven't got the patience to chew Baidu today and it's almost lunchtime, so 花雕酒 it is LOL (aka one of several things that you occasionally see just referred to in recipes as "Chinese cooking wine", thanks for that infuriatingly helpful description!!1!)

Also I had to cheat and look up the other half of that one because I only had a vague impression of it: 远亲不如近邻! Extra relatable in the age of online pocketfriends 🥲

[grayswandir]

Hah, yeah, I actually tried to look up 雕虫 before I posted but eventually gave up. XD It seems to have something to do with seal script, I think.

远亲不如近邻!

Oh, cool, I didn't even know that one had a second half! I wish dictionaries would include those more often...

ETA: Forgot to 接龙 something. I didn't know until I tried to look up 雕虫 that 雕 is also the simplified form of 鵰, so going from there, I just found 一箭双雕, which seems like 一石二鸟 but extra impressive!