Recently a Beijing father sent in a question at an Internet forum (论坛) asking what "PK" meant。
"My family has been watching the 'Super Girl' singing competition TV programme。
My little daughter asked me what 'PK' meant, but I had no idea," explained the puzzled father。
To a lot of Chinese young people who have been playing games online, it is impossible not to know this term。
In such Internet games, "PK" is short for "Player Kill", in which two players fight until one ends the life of the other。
In the case of the "Super Girl" singing competition, "PK" was used to refer to the stage where two singers have to compete with each other for only one chance to go up in competition ranking。
Like this father, Chinese teachers at high schools have also been finding their students' compositions using Internet jargons which are difficult to understand。
A high school teacher from Tianjin asked her students to write compositions with simple language, but they came up with a lot of Internet jargons that she didn't understand。
"My 'GG' came back this summer from college。 He told me I've grown up to be a 'PLMM'。 I loved to 'FB' with him together; he always took me to the 'KPM'," went one composition。
"GG" means Ge Ge (Chinese pinyin for brother)。 "PLMM" refers to Piao Liang Mei Mei (beautiful girl)。 "FB" means Fu Bai (corruption)。
"KPM" is short for KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonald's。
Some specialists welcome Internet jargons as a new development in language。
If you do not even know what a Kong Long (dinosaur, referring to an ugly looking female) or a Qing Wa (frog, referring to an ugly looking male) is, you will possibly be regarded as a Cai Niao!
。