Since I occasionally spend some time playing around on ptt, I come across a lot of specialized (e.r. completely random) internet speak. Recently, a new and unique one that has cropped up is “der” and it’s just such an oddball, I wanted to share it with everyone here!

Let’s look at some examples at how it’s used:

「真der」（zhēn）：really

「超厲害der」（chāo lìhai）：awesome

「我是來X der」（wǒshìlái）：I’m here to [do x] …

In use, “der” replaces  the character 「的」and you’ll not only see it on ptt but also on Facebook, chat apps like Line, etc.

Of course it’s very specialized and I don’t think I can work it into my thesis any time soon, but wanted to share it with everyone in case you happen across it!

I was going through articles I saved to read later (this NYT article was form over a year ago!) and came across this article from the Chinese Edition of the New York Times. Which, by the way, you should check out as it provides English and Chinese side by side article views. Perfect for improving your reading!

The article was about NASA finding ice on Mercury with the title “NASA報告水星上發現大量水冰”. The Chinese name of planet Mercury is: 水星 (shuǐxīng): 水 (water) + 星 (a star, planet) = Mercury (planet), because of he Chinese way of referring to Mercury as “liquid silver” or, more literally, “water silver” (水銀 ; shuǐyín).

However, there’s a bit more to the story than this. Unfortunately, the burden of 140 characters kept me from going into it deeper on Twitter. During my research, I found that there was also a cultural reason for naming Mercury–and the other planets–after elements like water. Let’s take a look at the following list of the planets and their Chinese names:

Mercury: 水星 (shuǐxīng)
Venus: 金星 (Jīnxīng)
Earth: 地球 (dìqiú)
Mars: 火星 (Huǒxīng)
Jupiter: 木星 (Mùxīng)
Saturn: 土星 (Tǔxīng)
Uranus: 天王星 (Tiānwángxīng)
Neptune: 海王星 (Hǎiwángxīng)

That’s all eight of them (since Pluto got demoted :()! You’ll notice the first five (excluding Earth) that all have elements: water (水), metal (金), fire (火), wood (木), and earth (土) in their names are also the ones relatively closest to Earth. This also means that they are visible by the naked eye, and to ancient astronomers. Naming them after those specific elements has to do with the traditional Chinese concept of Wu Xing (五行 wŭ xíng) which was used to explain a large variety of phenomenon. The ordering for these phases are:

Wood (木 mù), Fire (火 huǒ), Earth (土 tǔ), Metal (金 jīn), and Water (水 shuǐ)

This order is set, and doesn’t change. As the names came based on which ones looked larger and brighter in the sky, so we have them seemingly out of order with water (水), metal (金), fire (火), wood (木), and earth (土). However, to the ancient astronomers of China, they would have been wood (木), fire (火), earth (土), metal (金), and water (水) based on what they could observe, and which ones seemed larger, and brighter (thus, to them, closer to Earth).

However, the last two, Uranus (天王星) and Neptune (海王星) follow the English way of naming planets. Just as those planets were discovered later, so too in China. That is why we they are based on the English names while the other planets retain their traditional naming.

Just coming off this lovely four day vacation for 中秋節 (Happy post-Moon Festival everyone by the way!) and I’m bringing you this fun new colloquialism that I’ve heard used on and off both in the office and outside with friends. And yes, it is the namesake of this post!

地雷
ㄉㄧˋㄌㄟˊ [dìléi]
landmine

I don’t think I’ve ever come across such versatile use of the word “landmine” before, but it’s super fun to use. For example, when you’re out to lunch and have a crappy dessert or an even worse cup of coffee you can refer to it as 地雷：「這個蛋糕是地雷」。

It’s come to mean something that isn’t/wasn’t worth buying, or something that is famous in name only but in reality is actually pretty awful.

Some examples from the news:

吃對了嗎？5種體質防蔬果地雷
用LINE10大地雷 最恨「顯示已讀不回」
外食族減重　避開3大早餐地雷

Funnily enough, this can also be used to refer to Windows ME, Windows Vista and Windows 8.