Long time no see (addendum)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>Huang's dictionary (1970) gives the Cantonese equivalent as "hóu noih móuh
>gin". I think the third character is a Cantonese negative (= 'wu' in
>'Mandarin'); I don't know what the  second character is.

The 1st and 4th characters = Guoyu ('Mandarin') 'hao' and 'jian' respectively.

The 2nd character = Guoyu 'nai' (4th tone), translated 'endure' in my Guoyu
dictionary.

The 3rd character is the Cantonese negative of 'have', equivalent to Guoyu
'mei-you'. This Cantonese character is written (with 4 strokes) like Guoyu
'you' = 'have' except without the 2 horizontal strokes in the 'moon' part.
I believe this is cognate with the Guoyu negative 'wu' (2nd tone) = 'un-',
'-less', rather than with 'mei-you', but again I'll defer to any expert.

-- Doug Wilson