# Urdu: خوش فہم



## Gope

Friends, what is the meaning of خوش فہم  in the following context:


جس مقام پر بابا شہاب الدین کا مزار واقع تھا، اس سے کچھ فاصلے پر ایک وسیع و عَرِیض میدان پھیلا ہوا تھا۔اس میدان کو "پانڈوانہ" کہتے تھے۔ چمکور کے خوش فہم بڑے بوڑھوں کو اس بات کا یقین تھا، کہ کورو اور پانڈو کی مہا بھارتی لڑائی اسی میدان میں ہوئی تھی

Thanks.


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## marrish

Nothing exactly equivalent is coming to my mind so we'll have to expect other friends to come to rescue but it is an adjective bearing the sense of 'credulous'.


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## Gope

marrish said:


> Nothing exactly equivalent is coming to my mind so we'll have to expect other friends to come to rescue but it is an adjective bearing the sense of 'credulous'.


That is precisely the difficulty here. 
Urdu lughat gives  1. ہر کام کو اپنی خواہش کے مطابق دیکھنے اور سمجھنے والا، *اپنی منشا کے مطابق **نتیجہ** نکالنے والا*، وہ شخص جو غلط فہمی میں مبتلا ہو۔. In the given context, the second of these three senses seems to be apt. Could one then say: 'the old men of Chamkaur *liked to believe* that this was the battleground of the Kauravas and the Pandavas...'?


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## marrish

Perhaps yes, it is possible, although you used a verbal phrase and that one is an adjective, it is perfectly usable to convey the meaning. baRe buuRhe will amount to important old men or 'elders'. "Believed in their naivety" is also an option.

But we miss third parties to the discussion.


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## tarkshya

I have mostly seen خوش فہم in its more common form خوش فہمی, which to me means something close to misconceptions, illusions and blissful ignorance.


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## Sheikh_14

I can't say for the particular context above but a xush fehm person is a wishful-thinker and xush-fehmii wishful thinking. I am not sure though how you would distinguish xaam-xayaalii with xush fehmi in English. Any ideas as to how to translate the duo?


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## Sheikh_14

I think I have it Xush fehm= delusional whereas xaam-xayaal stands for a wishful-thinker.


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## PersoLatin

In Persian: 
خوش فهم خوش فهم . [ خوَش ْ / خُش ْ ف َ ] (ص مرکب )بافهم . با فهم صحیح . زودیاب . نیک و تیز در ادراک .

The Urdu sense seems to be the opposite, is that really true?


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## Sheikh_14

Yes for whilst it seems Persian takes the more literal route in Xush fehm to equate to a straight/correct-thinker, Urdu uses it for being delusional and deluded thinking/thinker. I don't know how this change came into being since the word is derived from Persian and thus at some point there has been a drift in connotations.


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## PersoLatin

Sheikh_14 said:


> Persian takes the more literal route in Xush fehm


'Literal route' does't apply to Persian as the term was formed in Persian. I'm being pedantic here 



Sheikh_14 said:


> Yes for whilst it seems Persian takes the more literal route in Xush fehm to equate to a straight/correct-thinker,Urdu uses it for being delusional and deluded thinking/thinker. I don't know how this change came into being since the word is derived from Persian and thus at some point there has been a drift in connotations.


Maybe if it was used sarcastically or ironically, on delusional or deluded thinkers, before it was widely used, and it got stuck there.


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## colognial

PersoLatin said:


> In Persian:
> خوش فهم خوش فهم . [ خوَش ْ / خُش ْ ف َ ] (ص مرکب )بافهم . با فهم صحیح . زودیاب . نیک و تیز در ادراک .
> 
> The Urdu sense seems to be the opposite, is that really true?



PersoLatin, hi! The dictionary is of course the authority here, but may I point out that today the Persian speakers of Iran use this and other, similar constructs to imply that someTHING lends itself to some action? For instance, خوش فهم apparently means 'a person who has insight and can understand things readily', but the construct is equally applied to a thing that can be easily understood. Think of زودیاب, 'a person who is sharp in discerning things' or 'a thing that is quickly found or discerned'; خوش خوراک, 'a gourmet' or 'a dish that is highly palatable'. Do you not agree?


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## PersoLatin

colognial said:


> PersoLatin, hi! The dictionary is of course the authority here, but may I point out that today the Persian speakers of Iran use this and other, similar constructs to imply that someTHING lends itself to some action? For instance, خوش فهم apparently means 'a person who has insight and can understand things readily', but the construct is equally applied to a thing that can be easily understood. Think of زودیاب, 'a person who is sharp in discerning things' or 'a thing that is quickly found or discerned'; خوش خوراک, 'a gourmet' or 'a dish that is highly palatable'. Do you not agree?


Hi colognial, in the context of what I wrote (copied from Dehkhoda) in post 10, I don't understand the reason for your question, I must have missed something.

I think these compound words, are generally coined for one primary meaning, and the other sense is developed later, and mistakenly. E.g. خوش فهم was coined to define نیک و تیز در ادراک ('a person who understands things readily') and its other sense i.e. a subject that's easily understood, must be either as a result of misreading of the first sense, or it just works by accident, although for me خوش فهم has only one meaning. In the same way, زودیاب can't mean both things. Another example is خوش خواب, this can only mean 'someone who sleeps heavily, a lot, or falls asleep quickly' but mistakenly, it might be applied to a bed that provides a 'good nights asleep'.


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## PersoLatin

farasso0 said:


> I think خوشخواب is something like Kleenex. It's a brand not mattress.


I said: 'but mistakenly, it might be applied to a bed', in order to make a point, apart from that, I wasn't speaking literally.


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## PersoLatin

farasso0 said:


> فکر می کنم منظور منو اشتباه متوجه شدید خوشخواب اسم یه برند قدیمیه که تشک تخت تولید می کنه. و بعضی از مردم از اون موقع به جای تشک می گن خوشخواب و خوشخواب همونطور که گفتید کسیه که تخت می گیره می خوابه، نه تشکی که راحته و کسی هم خوشخواب رو صفت برای تخت نمی دونه. همونطور که کلینکس اسم یک برنده و بعضی به دستمال کاغذی می گن کلینکس


Thank you, exactly, maybe خوشخواب was a confusing example, but we got there 



farasso0 said:


> این با موضوعی که شما کاملا صحیح بهش پاسخ دادید فرق می کنه. خوش فهم صفت فاعلی به معنی خوش فهمنده و زودیاب صفت فاعلی به معنی زود یابنده ست و در مورد اشیا اصلا معنی نداره که به کار برده بشه.
> من تا حالا نشنیدم خوش فهم و زودیاب به معنی صفت مفعولی به کار برده بشه. همین طور تا حالا نشنیدم خوش خوراک رو کسی به معنی آدم خوش غذا به  کار ببره


خوش خور is خوش غذا and the correct form, but sounds a little rude, in Persian. 
To me, there's a difference between خوش خور and خوش خوراک, when applied to a person, خوش خوراک is someone who eats expensive, high quality, and/or well prepared food, whereas خوش خور is someone who enjoys food and eats plenty of it.


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## Sheikh_14

PersoLatin said:


> 'Literal route' does't apply to Persian as the term was formed in Persian. I'm being pedantic here
> 
> Just because a term is forged in one language doesn't mean it cannot take its own constituent parts in a literal sense. Xush= good/well and fehm- comprehender/understander. Therefore if the two.combine to mean exactly that, it would be a literal take on the compound term.
> 
> Maybe if it was used sarcastically or ironically, on delusional or deluded thinkers, before it was widely used, and it got stuck there.



Perhaps, but that would suggest that initally the Persian definition was adopted and then altered, which may or may not be the case. For that we would need to know the historical background of the term from a purely Urdu lens. Your theory nonetheless is a good one. It would take an Urdu etymologist or one who is well versed in Urdu's Persian connection to answer this one and I hope to god that he/she does come forward with his/her 2 cents.


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## PersoLatin

Hi Sheikh_14, just a small but important point, the second paragraph in the above, is not mine. i.e. this:



> Just because a term is forged in one language doesn't mean it cannot take its own constituent parts in a literal sense. Xush= good/well and fehm- comprehender/understander. Therefore if the two.combine to mean exactly that, it would be a literal take on the compound term.


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