The Chinese saying 聰明絕頂 / 聪明绝顶 / cōngmíng jué dǐng / “clever bright extreme top” means “clever to the highest degree”.
絕 jué, however, also means "to cut off", e.g., 絕交 jué jiāo / to stop being friends (sever relations).
The pun-loving Chinese like to put a different spin on 聰明絕頂: that the cleverness cuts off the top (part of the head), therefore to go bald.
A Chinese friend says, “Everything stops growing on the top of the head (头顶 tóu dǐng) if someone knows too much knowledge” (李懿 / Li Yi, 2022).
No comments:
Post a Comment