emperor's new clothes

aranagazoo
 August 05, 2008, 12:06 PM posted in General Discussion

Hi! wasn't sure where to post this, but I've been reading "The emperor's new clothes" in chinese lately, and this old advisor to the king is sent to check on the clothes and can't see them and is rubbing his eyes and says: "我的老天爷!"  Could anyone help me decipher this? 

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tvan
 August 05, 2008, 01:25 PM

aranagazoo, based upon how I have heard the phrase used, 老天爷 is a mild exclamation meaning, "Heavens" or something like that.  It seems that you put 我的 in front of it in an exclamation.  For example, I often hear 我的妈呀 used as an exclamation.  The 妈呀 is the exclamation, and the 我的 just goes in front as part of the sentence structure. 

This type of informal structure isn't covered as often in texts, though I seem to recall a Qing Wen covering it.  (Sorry, too lazy to search.)  Maybe some more learned users can post some more academically-grounded advice.