脫箠(凸垂) thut-chhôe to make a mistake, to muck up; Mando: 出差錯

One of my friends used this word in a message he sent me today. The message read as follows:

在工作…客人要來工廠我很忙>_<
我怕我講英文惠[sic. should be 會]凸垂
緊張!!!!

I’m working… a client is coming to see the factory [so] I’m really busy>_<

I’m worried I’ll make a mistake with my English

Nervous!!!!

I’d never seen the word 凸垂 before – but after I did a bit of googling I came across this pretty helpful blog post, which suggested that the original characters are 脫箠, and it originally means to miss something with a stick, hence the photo, but can be extended to mean to make a mistake, which is it’s most common use.

This word can often be sneaked into Mandarin sentences, so feel free to pepper your sentences with it.

Feel free to contact me with any cool Taiwanese words or phrases you hear and want featured on the blog.