Wah you're one meticulous chap. Didn't know this 半桶水 is widely
accepted in many dialects. However, I've never heard it in
cantonese before....ok wait, let me try on my chinese friends
lol.
If you noticed from the examples I posted above, 半桶水 has
already traversed the boundaries of dialects, reaching the scale of
a phenomenon of a huge areal, cross-topolectal usage.
If you noticed, the 2 entries before the last entry (from the
earlier posting), are variations from 半桶水, which is 半罐水。
And if you have noticed too, you can formulate a general rule
for this terminology, which is applicable to a great part of
Southen China, that, it always more or less comes in the form of
:
『 半
(CLASSIFIER) (SOME OBJECTS WHICH EXHIBIT LIQUID PROPERTY)
』
Example below all means the same across different dialects and
topolects: 半桶水、半罐水、半瓶水、半瓶醋、半瓶子醋、半桶屎
I hope you know the purpose is to point out that, let's say in
general, the Taiwanese population can accept such terms as
“老神在在” or “鉄齒” which originated from the narrow stretch of
Hokkien & Teochew areas, then why is it that Jacky Wu
stump at “半桶水” when it is used so frequently in Hokkien but in
actual fact, across the vast topological contiguous areas of
Southern China ?
You can see the areal distribution for the wide usage
of “半桶水” (& variation
“半罐水”) and narrow
usage “老神在在 / 鉄齒” for
a clear comparison:
notes:
1. Meixian is the boundary for both the usage of “半桶水”
& “半罐水” (refer to previous post - Entry from Moiyen
Hakka Dictionary)
2. Fuzhou, which is within the Min linguistical
proper, uses “半含通”, therefore it is not included in the
boundaries.
3. The 4 regions on the map belonging to the "Central
Topolectal Classification" (namely Nanchang, Changsha, Shanghai & Hangzhou), mostly use other
forms, eg. Nanchang uses “半瓶子醋”, Changsha uses “半瓶醋”,
Shanghai & Hangzhou both use “半吊子”)
4. There could be even greater areas of “半桶水” usage,
due to lack of information for certain areas (such as Nanning &
Chongqing, which just lie contiguous with the areas that
uses “半桶水”)
