bpào vs bpàao

[SasukeUchiha]

Had an interesting conversation with my gf’s sister today in our group chat. My Thai is not the best but with some help from google translate, I manage to get by.
 
however today I was rather confused when reading messages in the chat, she sent:    เป่า . Simple google search says it means blow but according to her this is slang. So it essentially means no or nothing. Has anyone ever heard of this slang being used? 
 

conversation in question went something along the lines of: 

 

Gf sister: เป่าาาา

 

gf: จะเป่าหรือไม่เป่า

 

just find it interesting how such slang words translate and mean something completely different and would love to hear other peoples thoughts. 

 

 

[JayClay]

They're different words 

เปล่า means empty or nothing (or not, as in กินข้าวหรือเปล่า)

 

เป่า means blow.

 

Maybe they're using them interchangeably for some kind of in joke/laziness/autocorrect issue. I have no idea if this is common amongst Thais or not.

 

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by JayClay

[SasukeUchiha]

Thanks, now I’m even more confused. If blow is not slang for nothing,  then what exactly would this mean: 

 

จะเป่าหรือไม่เป่า

 

 

[JayClay]

 I can't make sense of the sentence when substiting empty... จะเป่าหรือไม่เป่า me says "will [implied subject] blow or not blow" which would make sense but it's not really how people speak.

 

If it was replaced to say  จะเปล่าหรือไม่เปล่า that wouldn't make sense grammatically.

 

I could understand จะเป่าหรือเปล่า to make much more sense "will [implied subject] blow or not"

Edited February 6, 2021 by JayClay

[SasukeUchiha]

I’m more confused than before, I will be sure to ask her this tomorrow. She was adamant this was slang words used by younger generation, so instead of saying ป่าว , she said เป่า . 
 

so in other words, she said “nothing” when my gf asked her what is wrong, and then my gf replied: จะเป่าหรือไม่เป่า : which is slang for something along the lines of “is it actually nothing or not nothing” . 
 

at first I was joking with her as I thought it was a sexual connotation asking if she’ll blow or not ????

[JayClay]

Maybe   จะเปล่าหรือไม่เปล่า would make sense.... Is it (will it be...) really nothing or not? Maybe they substitute empty for blow to be hip and trendy?

 

Maybe the จะ is used to imply something along the lines of "you're saying it's nothing now, but what will you say about it in the future?"

 

This is all guesswork.

 

Thais don't blow, by the way, they suck. สูบ. They also suck cigarettes สูบบุหรี่ which is why you'll often find girls with limited English abilities saying they want to smoke you.

 

Ahem. Or so I've heard...

[SasukeUchiha]

Yes that’s exactly what my gf replied when I made the joke about blowing. She was rather confused and then said “oh u mean smoke”. I’ve also heard the term smoke a fair few times ????

[JayClay]

Also often Thais are lazy to pronounce ล in a cluster which is how เปล่า could be pronounced (and hence maybe written) as ป่าว.

 

I'm surprised the ไม่ is in there though... จะเป่าหรือเป่า to me sounds way more catchy than จะเป่าหรือไม่เป่า

[jackdd]

Impossible to tell what she meant unless you provide more context.

 

24 minutes ago, JayClay said:

Thais don't blow, by the way, they suck. สูบ. They also suck cigarettes สูบบุหรี่ which is why you'll often find girls with limited English abilities saying they want to smoke you.

Thais use อม for this activity, which also means suck, but in a way like eating candy (ลูกอม), but this has nothing to do with smoking.

In my experience if a girl uses (or even knows) the word "smoke" for this activity, she has usually worked in a bar (or massage, or similar), or has friends who did this.

Edited February 7, 2021 by jackdd

[SasukeUchiha]

30 minutes ago, jackdd said:

Impossible to tell what she meant unless you provide more context.

we were talking about an event which unfolded and how exactly people found out in the family. My gf sister  replied “huh “ to a comment to which my gf replied: หึอะไร . Then the subsequent conversation went: 

Gf sister: เป่าาาา

 

gf: จะเป่าหรือไม่เป่า

After that the convo moved on. In regards to your smoke comment, I really do hope my gf heard it either from a friend or just picked it up growing up. She never struck me as the bar type ????

[jackdd]

I think that she wanted to write เปล่าาาา instead of เป่าาาา, and then the other person just tried to make something funny out of the typo.

My girlfriend's first thought was that they are talking about เป่าแอลกอฮอล์ (blowing into an alcohol tester), but if no alcohol testing was involved she would agree with the typo.

[JHicks]

My guess is it means to tell / let on, as in to reveal a secret. One meaning of ป่าว is to make someone aware of something or make it public knowledge, and one meaning of เป่า is to play a wind instrument, so the slang aspect could just be the respelling, or the idea could be along the same lines as when the old folks talk about "trumpeting" some piece of news (probably both). I'm not sure that fits your context 100% but it makes sense to me. Anyway please post when you get the official answer.

[KhaoNiaw]

It's very common for Thais to use ป่าว instead of เปล่า in chat and text following the spoken language. So common that I think I've picked up the habit. There's also the shortened version ปะ or ป่ะ, so in texts, Line etc., you often see ใช่ป่าว, ใช่ปะ, ใช่ป่ะ.

I'd guess that the OP's girlfriend is saying that the younger generation are now having a bit of fun and taking it a step further by replacing ป่าว with เป่า. I haven't come across it but it's either that or, as someone said earlier, it was a typo that they had a bit of fun out of.  

[BKKBike09]

23 hours ago, jackdd said:

I think that she wanted to write เปล่าาาา instead of เป่าาาา, and then the other person just tried to make something funny out of the typo.

My girlfriend's first thought was that they are talking about เป่าแอลกอฮอล์ (blowing into an alcohol tester), but if no alcohol testing was involved she would agree with the typo.

 

+1 on a breathalyser situation, if there's no other context. This then meaning "do the test or not" - a not uncommon topic of discussion.

 

Also if they weren't typing on phones but using the Line or whatever speech-to-type feature then that will often render words like 'plaao' เปล่า as 'pao' เป่า ป่าว etc, same as words like 'reu' เหรือ which often comes out as รือ รึ  Most people then don't bother to 'correct' the shorthand.