posted by kozerton on August 29, 2013 | 2 comments
This is probably super simple for any blogger in China, but bear with me... I've come across the phrase "招牛" in a few blogs, which I usually took to mean "herding sheep/cattle" and assumed it was in reference to the mewling internet masses. A couple of times I've seen it referenced when referring to something about hacking, which makes me a bit uncertain of my translation...Am I far off? What does this normally mean in Chinese internet slang?
Hi kosakattack -- This was new to me, so I poked around a bit online to see if I could find anything. At a best guess -- and if you've got any examples of this being used in the wild, I can take a better look -- this seems to be a joking synonym for 招生. Apparently at some point there was a typo or printer's error that resulted in 招生 ("to recruit[ing] students") coming out as 招牛 -- literally, "recruiting cows," but actually something more like "recruiting awesome supremo badasses" thanks to the dual life of the word 牛. So if this is turning up in posts about hacking, maybe it's got to do with someone trying to get a super-1337 crew together?Disclaimer: I could be waaaaaay off here. Have you got a link to an example of what you're talking about?Side note: "herding" would usually be 牧羊/牧牛.
Hey Brendan, thanks for the help!I definitely think you're onto something with the 1337 stuff - I found another instance that just has 牛 so I'm guessing it's a combination of both the typo scenario that became a meme and the duality of "niu". I found another example later on an IT site when Baidu-ing talking about computer classes designed for hackers and 牛 so I'm guessing it means something along the lines of 1337h4x0rs. I'll see if i can find the same link again...