Page:Pekinese Rhymes (G. Vitale, 1896).djvu/87

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may be seen from the description of her dress, which follows. The slang word sa2 'r, not generally known even among Pekinese, means dress, fashion, toilette. As no written character exists to represent this sound and this meaning, I have used for it the character sa 撒 which being originally in the first tone, here ought to be read in the second. Wanting to find a character for the word, it could be formed this combination 𧝠 to be read sa2 'r. — One of the phrases commonly heard is this 你有撒兒沒撒兒 ni3 iou3 sa2 'r, mei2 sa2 'r? — meaning "have you got a good dress or not? 洋縐 yang2 chou4, crape imported by foreigners. 汗褟兒 han4 t'a1 'r, sort of cloth under-dress or shirt worn by Chinese in contact with the skin. European shirts are mostly styled 汗衫 han4 shan1. 牛糞 niu2fen4 "ox-dung", name for a sort of head dress, more decently called 圓頭 yüan2 t'ou2 "round head". ⿰坐瓜 p'ai3, character not noted in the dictionaries but mentioned by Sir T. Wade in his Tone exercises. It means "to let onself down, to lie down, and-then to be seated, placed". Here it is used as a noun, and is referred to the chignon placed on the girl's head. 晚香玉 uan3 hsiang14, the gem which smells in the evening, the tuberosa (lat. Poliauthes tuberosa*). 五分底兒 u3-fen1 ti3 'r, thick five fen. The fen is the tenth part of the ts'un, an inch. The shoe sole is called 底兒 ti3 'r, or 底子 ti3 tzu, and may be as thick as five or six inches. That sort of heel which is placed sometimes in the center of the sole in