Diu (Cantonese)

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The written form of diu commonly seen in Hong Kong.

Diu (Traditional Chinese: 屌; Hong Kong coinage: 𨳒（門小）; Jyutping: diu2; Pinyin: diǎo) is a common profanity in Cantonese. It may be regarded as the Cantonese equivalent of the English fuck. The word is sometimes referred jocularly as one of the Five Great Profanities of the Clan Door (門氏五傑)¹ of Cantonese.

1 In Chinese classic texts
2 In Hong Kong
3 Notes
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] In Chinese classic texts

Diu is indeed an old word in the vernacular Chinese language. Anyone familiar with the classic novel Water Margin should know the word by heart, where it is written as 鳥 (which indeed means "birds") and used as an emphatic adjective with a function similar to the English "fucking", "bloody" or "god damned". For instance,

武松指著蔣門神，說道：「休言你這廝鳥蠢漢！景陽岡上那隻大蟲，也只三拳兩腳，我兀自打死了！量你這個直得甚麼！快交割還他！但遲了些個，再是一頓，便一發結果了你廝！」-《水滸傳》廿九回

Diu means primarily the penis. It is written as 屌 when used in this sense, but usually as 鳥 when used as an emphatic adjective. For example,

木寸、馬户、尸巾，你道我是個「村驢屌」？-《西廂記》第五本第三折

屌 has its female equivalent 屄 (pronounced bī in Mandarin) in the traditional Chinese written language. In the Yuan Dynasty operas, the word, meaning penis, is sometimes written as 頹, for instance,

我見了些覓前程俏女娘，見了些鐵心腸男子漢，便一生里孤眠，我也直甚頹！-《救風塵》第一折

[edit] In Hong Kong

The written form is mainly seen in Hong Kong, for example, on graffiti. Its creation may be due to the ignorance of the character 屌. In Cantonese, it is used as a transitive verb meaning to copulate. In a manner similar to the English word fuck, it is also used to express dismay, disgrace, disapproval and so on. For example, someone may shout "diu nei!" ("fuck you!" or "fuck off!") at somebody when he or she finds that other person annoying.

"Diu nei lo mo!" (屌你老母) or "Diu nei lo mei" ("fuck your mother") is a highly offensive profanity in Cantonese when directed against a specific person instead of used as a general exclamation. However, in contrast to the English phrase "Fuck your mother", which implies "You fuck your mother", the Cantonese phrase "Diu nei lo mo" implies "I fucked your mother".

Due to the absence of in the Big-5 character set on computers, 屌 is used instead by some Hong Kongers, though they may think is the traditional character. The Government of Hong Kong has extended Unicode and the Big-5 character set with the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set, which includes Chinese characters only used in Cantonese, including the Five Great Profanities. The government explained that the reason for these characters being included is to allow for the Hong Kong Police to record criminal suspects' statements.

In English, "damn" gives birth to its euphemism "darn"; similarly in Cantonese, especially Hong Kong Cantonese, diu has yiu (妖) and tiu (挑) as its euphemism. Some people, however, are not aware that the variations, which they use quite casually, are related to the profane diu.

On a related note, the character 屌 (diǎo), which is equivalent to the English slang term "dick" in Mandarin Chinese, is also commonly used by young people in Taiwan to mean "cool". In this context it is not censored on TV broadcasts.

[edit] Notes

The five profanities are said to be Diu, Gau (𨳊（門九） meaning penis), Nen (𨶙（門能）™ meaning also penis), Tsat (𨳍（門七） meaning again penis), Hai (閪（門西） meaning vulva), each of the five coined characters has "door" (門) as its semantic element, which might symbolize the vulva, as the "door" to the female genitalia. Some use the sentence 小狗能擦鞋 (lit. small dogs can brush shoes), which rhymes with the five profane characters, as a mnemonic to remember them. In school, 'Diu' as a profanity, is banned. And any student who says this word would probably be punished, if heard by teachers.