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Q: When did "No, no, no" become a thing we say?
Do you say it, because since becoming a father I say it a lot? As in "No, no, no, don't touch that" or "No, no, no, put that away, this is a restaurant." or "No, no, no, for God's sake, I wanna live." The thing is i'm finding more and more people say it immediately after me, like it's something they recognize we foreigners say. Is that right then, do we all go around saying "No, no, no" all the time?
As a side note i've found a nice way to deal with the minor annoyance of this mimicry. As soon as someone says it, I counter with some daft invented phrase, and it's surprising how often they'll copy that too. There's actually a strange satisfaction to be had from hearing an elderly woman say "Fist me doctor" or "Sticky rat balls," you should try it.
I do not say that.
mArtiAn:
I didn't realize I did until I started noticing others repeating it. It's like saying 'man' all the time (something I do), I just came back from the stationers and when I walked in with my son the guy behind the counter said to his partner "Hey, man" and laughed. I gave him a dirty look, then turned and saw my son picking stuff off the shelf and said, "C'mon man."
No idea, I work with Hongkers and stopped talking, listening or looking at local Chinese people since a year or two, to preserve my own sanity. My interractions with locals are limited to my car's horn and the pretty girls I get.
mengxing:
Have you really not realised how bitter and awful the things you say are?
Probably a fallout from the xie xie xie, ni hao ni hao ni hao, OK OK OK, and all at nonsense. Chinese have terrible habit of repeating something 3 times, what a waste of oxygen. Don't often hear anyone say duibuqi duibuqi duibuqi when they push, shove, bump into you or run into you with the bloody bike.
