Long time no see

[Douglas G. Wilson]

> > He gives the Chinese as "ch'ang chih mei", meaning the same thing. I am
> > skeptical and I think there is an error here: maybe "ch'ang shih mei k'an"
> > can fill the bill ....
>
>You're right that ch'ang chih mei is wrong. As I said yesterday, long time
>no see is perfect Chinese grammar. Ch'ang shih mei k'an (Wade-Giles is not
>my favorite transliteration system, but never mind) is good grammatical
>Chinese, but it's not idiomatic. In Chinese people say "hao jiu bu jian"
>(good long or good while no see).

But the expression wouldn't have originated in modern Kuoyü.

It would originate more likely in Shanghainese (Wu), or some other port
'dialect', I would guess.

And note that the expression is at least about 100 years old.

-- Doug Wilson