Possible meanings for 'tchen wah'

POSTED BY: BlueEyedBrigadier
UPDATED: Sunday, July 23, 2006 22:44
VIEWED: 5197
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BLUEEYEDBRIGADIER

Thursday, July 20, 2006 3:15 AM

Ok...I bow to my fellow Browncoats for advice on this

During a recent trolling of the Blue Sun Room, I stopped to read a fellow Browncoat's lovely fic about Kaylee and Inara finding love. Inside one chapter of this storyline, the term "tchen wah" is chucked out by Mal about Inara after Inara basically ignores an attempt by Mal to wind her up (she actually imitates Mal and makes reference to her "whorin")

Now...the issue at hand is this: I seem to recall seeing a definition for "tchen wah" as "drunken slut," and I pointed this out to the author in a friendly manner (as I strive to do). They responded that they thought the term simply meant "slut."

I am not asking to start a heated debate over nuance, but I am curious what the prevalent thought is here on what "tchen wah" means. Just wanna make sure I am not unfairly correcting someone.

BlueEyedBrigadier

Literature has shown us some of humanity's greatest achievements; history, some of our greatest failures -- Alun Lewis

DAVESHAYNE

Thursday, July 20, 2006 3:52 AM

It's translated here http://www.fireflyfans.net/reference.asp?r=831 as 'slut' no drunken.

David

"Not completely as well as the series of Firefly..." - From a review of Serenity at amazon.de

FFYING2

Sunday, July 23, 2006 10:44 PM

If the "tchen wah" is the same as how Zoe referred to Saffron in "Our Mrs. Reynolds," the original English was "cheap floozy." This was most likely translated into jian4huo4. That's pronounced something like "tchen hwa" and means "slut, woman of indecent behavior" (used literally: "cheap goods"). I'm not aware that drunkenness needs to enter into it.

Ying

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