Tai-Pan
The term Tai-Pan , also Taipan ( Chinese 大班 , Pinyin dàbān , Jyutping daai 6 baan 1 ) was originally used to describe a foreign entrepreneur in China or Hong Kong in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In slang Cantonese, it is now used in a more general sense for business people of all origins. Its literal meaning is "top class", comparable to the English slang term big shot .
The term was often used for senior managers and entrepreneurs in British-ruled Hong Kong .
Its first recorded use in English is in the Canton Register , an English language newspaper published in Canton in the 19th century , on October 28, 1834. Historical spelling variants are taepan (first use), typan and taipan . Outside of China, the term gained prominence after the publication of a short story by William Somerset Maugham The Taipan (1922) and the novel by James Clavell Tai-Pan (1966).
supporting documents
- ↑ Andrew J. Moody, "Transmission Lan: Guages and Source Languages of Chinese Borrowings in English," American Speech , Volume 71, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 414-415.
- ↑ 汉英 词典 - A Chinese-English Dictionary / 北京 外国语 学院 英语 系 《汉英 词典》 编写 组 编 (北京: 商务印书馆: 新华 书店 北京 发行 所 发行, 1988).
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edn, 1989).