# 烂



## xiaolijie

It's occurred to me that this character 烂 often together with another character forms words with very positive meanings, such as 灿烂，绚烂. At the same time, the character can also form very negative words, such as 破烂，腐烂. I'm curious as to how the same character is associated with the two opposite extremes (Yes, 烂 itself can mean "rotten" or "brilliant"). Is there any explanation for this? If there is, I'd like to hear, as this should be quite interesting .


----------



## Skatinginbc

It originally means "brilliant" (《詩經》：“子興視夜，明星有爛). During the Qin and  the Han Dynasty, it adopted a new meaning of "burning", "burned"  (《漢書》：“燋頭爛額") or "overboiled" (《呂氏春秋》：“熟而不爛").  And thence naturally came 鬆爛, 爛熟, 
海枯石爛, and eventually carried the meaning of "rotten” (e.g., 土崩魚爛).  It's a  gradual development that takes hundreds of years to evolve.  It's like the English word _awful_, which originally means " inspiring reverence" or "solemnly impressive" but eventually changes to "terribly bad".


----------



## xiaolijie

Skatinginbc said:


> It originally means "brilliant" (《詩經》：“子興視夜，明星有爛). During the Qin and  the Han Dynasty, it adopted a new meaning of "burning", "burned"  (《漢書》：“燋頭爛額") or "overboiled" (《呂氏春秋》：“熟而不爛").  And thence naturally came 鬆爛, 爛熟,
> 海枯石爛, and eventually carried the meaning of "rotten” (e.g., 土崩魚爛).  It's a  gradual development that takes hundreds of years to evolve.


Thanks skatinginbc! Your description for some reason sounds like that of a human life: brilliant at first, and then getting rotten during the hundred years of life!


----------



## Skatinginbc

xiaolijie said:


> a human life: brilliant at first, and then getting rotten during the hundred years of life!


How about being corrupt at first and brilliant at last?  The English word "sick" jumps to my mind, which means "spiritually or morally corrupt" in Old English but "cool, new, interesting" in modern slang.  Strangely, I cannot think of any Chinese terms going from bad to good right off the top of my head.


----------



## xiaolijie

Skatinginbc said:


> How about being corrupt at first and brilliant at last?  The English word "sick" jumps to my mind, which means "spiritually or morally corrupt" in Old English but "cool, new, interesting" in modern slang.  Strangely, I cannot think of any Chinese terms going from bad to good right off the top of my head.


This may be another topic, Skatinginbc. Let's hear more about 烂 for now.


----------



## name my name

To my understanding, "烂" is something 到了极致， no matter it is good or bad. "烂" delivers to me such extreme feelings and explosive feelings. In a phrase, it is like an adjective word, and the other word is of more importance. "灿烂" "破烂". in such phrases, the word "烂" is just to describe the degree of "灿" and “破”.


----------



## xiaolijie

I think you're right there, name my name! If "烂" is seen as denoting some extreme, then that explains how "烂" can work well in the two opposite extremes


----------



## BODYholic

1. In contemporary Chinese, "烂" seems to exhibit bipolar characteristic only when it is used in multi-syllable morphemes (examples listed in post #1). Are there situations where the single syllable morpheme "烂" is used with positive connotation? I can't think of any. It looks like the standalone "烂" lost that bipolar trait. 


2. I'm not sure about other regions, in Singapore, "烂" is a very versatile word and we used it very loosely to mean "sucks" (as in "it sucks"). E.g. 你超烂 / 你很烂 / 为什么你这么烂？ Do you used it the same ways?


----------



## stellari

From examples given by Skatinginbc, it appears his explanation makes the most sense to me. namemyname’s theory contradicts with most dictionaries: 'extreme' is only one possible (and less frequent) usage of 烂. It is not hard to see how the meaning of 烂 evolved: brilliance from fire -> (over)burned/destroyed by fire -> decomposed/broken -> bad


----------



## Skatinginbc

stellari said:


> brilliance from fire -> (over)burned/destroyed by fire -> decomposed/broken -> bad


May I add "bad -> extreme"?  It is a common semantic transition, for instance, English _terrible_ "very bad" -> "very serious, extreme"; _awful_ "bad or unpleasant" -> "extremely, very".


BODYholic said:


> 你超烂 / 你很烂 / 为什么你这么烂？ Do you used it the same ways?


Yes, in 國語, 形容人不好、差勁.  For instance, 你這個人太爛了！


BODYholic said:


> In contemporary Chinese, "烂" seems to exhibit bipolar characteristic  only when it is used in multi-syllable morphemes (examples listed in  post #1). Are there situations where the single syllable morpheme "烂" is  used with positive connotation? I can't think of any. It looks like the  standalone "烂" lost that bipolar trait.


You are right.  爛,  if standalone, is rarely a positive term in Modern Chinese although it  was originally attested as a monosyllabic morpheme with a positive  meaning (e.g., 明星有爛).  I think the reason is to reduce confusion.  As  time went by, 爛 gradually adopted newer meanings.  To avoid confusion,  the older meanings are expressed through idiomatic expressions 成语 (e.g.,  燋頭爛額, 爛银 "pure silver" or "shiny like silver", 爛漫麗靡) or by pairing with a near synonym (e.g., 燦爛), which specifies the meaning or interpretation of 爛.  In other word, the ancient positive 爛 becomes restricted in its innovative uses.


----------



## Ben pan

What you are discussing is really an interesting phenomenon, and de facto incurs my further thought about the slow and significant process of the constructing of our semantic system.

First, I want to reply to skatinginbc that the two polar opposite meaning signified by “变态sick” both in English and Chinese, is not really what I am going to talk about. I am sticking to the sort of phenomenon represented by the first thread. “The principle of the mean” is an universal creed understandable to every races, and admits of being accepted by any others. Anything that goes too far in one direction will turn toward its opposite. So there is no transformation of meaning in the usage of sick or other family similar words. If you are too bold, that you dare to fight a lion without any training and armament, people would say you are crazy, sick, foolish…, although it may be a display of overwhelming spiritedness.  Never would a prudent man say that you are courageous, for there is a limit put for human beings, out of which no human excellence will be connected with you.

Now I am going to put forth my own thought triggered by this thread. The building up of Chinese(just take Chinese as an example), is accompanied by the process of the development of its culture. In ancient China, approximately the Neolithic age, as held by most scholars, the tribes are ruled by its priests (as also strongly advocated by_ The Golden Bough, _and other dominating schools of the historians and anthropologists). The writing system are innovated by the priest class to be used to record the history of its tribes , and most of all, to worship gods. So most of the written characters must be related to high-sounding things, like heaven, moon, gods, light, splendor, glory, honor, beauty. Later on when the need of the expansion of the semantic system arises, lots of them are borrowed to refer to other vulgar things. This suits to the transition of the meaning of 烂from the definition I to the definition II. 烂 may be used to represent an image of the morning sun, dazzling and radiating, but people finally find it relevant to a boiled food, which is disintegrating, forming an image of radiation, and is very similar to some fruit exposed too long to the spectacular (烂漫)sunlight. 

Another very important event is that the political structure takes shape gradually, at first, they try their best to integrate the dotted-living people, and manage public affairs, tackle with lawsuits or disputes. The word 乱 is just used to describe the effort of the Great Pontifex or Great Emperor to create order among citizens. But as time wears on, they are aware that the interference of the supreme governor on many fields is not beneficial at all. So a doctrine names as the rule of no interference(无为之治) comes to the fore, and somehow people starts using 乱 to indicate a chaotic situation,  because most of the administration and management measures are deemed as counter-productive. In the later usage of 乱, people almost have forgotten that it was to mean order and beauty.

   Until now, all the examples show that words can changed from blight side to a dark side. Now let us see the opposite situation. 攻is originally to mean wage a war or fight against someone or some other city, which is another vindication that lots of words spring from political life. But they goes on to find that when at war with others , we are in the process of understanding them. So 攻 now gets new meanings which are to learn, and to treat it in a reasonable way, to tease out. Another similar example is 权, its ancient form depicts an image in which a man utilize his arm to catch a heavy object, so referring to military power.(权者，兵也) But hundreds of years later, it shows up in texts to mean measure up or weigh up, because they are conscious that the power or strength used to fight can also be used to weigh up things, and that they need to do that now  for the matter of exchange or other reasons. Since then, 权 can carry good meaning,权 is a very important wisdom of the ancient sophists.


----------



## BODYholic

Skatinginbc said:


> Yes, in 國語, 形容人不好、差勁.  For instance, 你這個人太爛了！



Thanks. It's good to hear that. At first, I thought only people from my country use it in such an odd way. In fact, I couldn't find any online dictionary that support this definition. Okay, perhaps it's unorthodox.


----------



## xiaolijie

BODYholic said:


> Thanks. It's good to hear that. At first, I thought only people from my country use it in such an odd way. In fact, I couldn't find any online dictionary that support this definition. Okay, perhaps it's unorthodox.


When a word is ambiguous between a negative and a positive meaning, who'd be unwise enough to use it in the positive sense? ( it could be wrongly construed ). But yes, as an entry in a dictionary, the positive sense of the character is recorded. Offhand, I can think of Wenlin dictionary being one but there are no doubt others.


----------



## zhg

Personally I don't think in a modern speech 烂 when stands alone by itself will be taken to mean  "brilliant" which is almost always used combining other characters, which is why I suspect they are inseparable, e.g. 阳光灿，阳光烂 don't make sense.


----------



## Skatinginbc

Ben pan said:


> So there is no transformation of meaning in the usage


I just want to confirm if I get you right: Are you saying that there is no semantic change but semantic expansion?  If so, I totally agree with you.  爛 and some English words we have discussed still keep their original meanings except that the linguistic environments for the older meanings have become restricted (e.g., 爛 "brilliant" rarely stands alone).  Of course, the newest meanings (e.g., sick "cool", 爛 "人不好、差勁") as still in their early stage of development are often confined to slang or informal usage.


----------



## Ben pan

Yes, all my words can be boiled down to that. But the sentence you quote, is directed against your discussion about sick.

I think in Chinese sick can mean superbly good too, so as crazy,  freak.. This semantic phenomenon may come under the category of semantic expansion too.  But compared to the cases of 烂，权，攻，乱，they seems more like an unfold of the permanent truth of things in the written history of human-being. So, inasmuch as language is a display of Volksgeist or characteristics of a nation, therefore mirroring the special history of it, the former is less a semantic matter than a subject of universal knowledge. If there is a closed line to indicate the extent to which the virtue of a human being can reach, the midpoint is the mean, any point other than the midpoint fall within the two categories names as overabundance and shortage. 

For example, if you are too brave, you may lost some other simple affections of life, we treat this kind of man as sick , just as we say a cowardly man is sick respecting his manliness. In respect of other qualities, which have no limit, such as wisdom and beauty, the theory of “the mean” still holds up. 

Here the mean remains to be good for most of us, but the part of the line beyond the midpoint is something we hope to reach. If a man, with his effort and natural attributes, reaches a height that few have ever do, than we say he is a semi-god, he is “divine”(in English, it means superbly good in reality). I think this entanglement of meanings is based on some fundamental principle of human life which belongs to the core of civilizations (west, east,…). 

From a very early age, we accept that man is not a god and not a beast too, man has his bounds, too much or too little of something is abnormal, bad, sick for him. We also recognize that godly thing is better than human thing, and it is something we could not obtain through effort only, but through worship or prayer. Therefore we use sick to describe the astonishing quality which is seemingly good but actually harmful, and use divine to mean something truly superiorly good. But this kind of distinction perishes away when it comes to usage of them in slang.


----------

