ลุ่มลึก, น่าเกรงขาม, And น่าหวั่นไหว

[DavidHouston]

From this week's news comes the following sentence:

"คนรุ่นใหม่ทางการเมืองไม่รู้สึกว่า "บิ๊กจิ๋ว" ในวัย 77 ปี จะลุ่มลึกและน่าหวั่นไหวเหมือนในอดีต"

My inclination is to understand this sentence to say:

" Political neophytes do not believe that "Big Jiew" [General Chawalit Yongjaiyut] at age 77 can be as formidable as he had once been."

I am having difficulty with the words "ลุ่มลึก" and "น่าหวั่นไหว".

Lexitron has "ลุ่มลึก" as [adj.] "prudent"; DS has the word as "deep". Neither of these English renderings seem to convey the usage in this sentence.

Lexitron's sample sentence is as follows:

" เขาเป็นผู้นำที่มีบุคลิกลุ่มลึกน่าเกรงขามแก่ผู้พบเห็น" which I understand as

" He is a leader who is characterized by caution and prudence and who inspires fear and respect in all those he encounters."

I am not sure that I am integrating the words "ลุ่มลึก", "น่าหวั่นไหว", and "น่าเกรงขาม" correctly.

What do you think? Thanks.

[thaikurs]

Hi, I am amateur. I read your posts in this forum a few years ago. I found that some members here were expert. One of them is YOU!

There is no answer yet. As said I am amateur, so I need to use "lexitrondic" and "translategoogle" to get words below:-

ลุ่มลึก

ที่มีความสุขุมละเอียดอ่อนหรือมีปัญญารอบคอบ

A delicate forethought or wisdom carefully

น่าเกรงขาม

มีลักษณะชวนให้กลัวเกรงเพราะความใหญ่โตหรือความสง่า

Similar call to fear because the grandeur or elegance

น่าหวั่นไหว (This word is quite difficult)

สั่นสะเทือน, โอนเอน, ครั่นคร้าม

Vibration, shaky, fear

[DavidHouston]

Hi, I am amateur. I read your posts in this forum a few years ago. I found that some members here were expert. One of them is YOU!

There is no answer yet. As said I am amateur, so I need to use "lexitrondic" and "translategoogle" to get words below:-

ลุ่มลึก

ที่มีความสุขุมละเอียดอ่อนหรือมีปัญญารอบคอบ

A delicate forethought or wisdom carefully

น่าเกรงขาม

มีลักษณะชวนให้กลัวเกรงเพราะความใหญ่โตหรือความสง่า

Similar call to fear because the grandeur or elegance

น่าหวั่นไหว (This word is quite difficult)

สั่นสะเทือน, โอนเอน, ครั่นคร้าม

Vibration, shaky, fear

Thank you for the reply. In a few days, if there is no reply, I will transfer the question to Paknam Web (the reference to which I am not allowed to post here.)

[SoftWater]

Thank you for the reply. In a few days, if there is no reply, I will transfer the question to Paknam Web (the reference to which I am not allowed to post here.)

I was surprised too that no answer was forthcoming here. I did do some research into it when you first posted this question but I couldn't come up with anything useful. My research indicated that หวั่นไหว means something like 'easily shaken' or perhaps 'nervous' - I couldn't fit this into the context of the rest of the sentence. Nor did I get much more joy out of ลุ่มลึก finding only the same answers as you yourself.

I was hoping someone would be able to give an answer as I'm interested too. If nothing's forthcoming by the time I get back to work next week I'll collar one of our Thai teachers about it.

[aanon]

Hi David, I'd look at คนรุ่นใหม่ทางการเมือง more literally as 'the new political generation'. I think "inspires fear and respect" is very good for น่าเกรงขาม. น่าหวั่นไหว is similar and in my opinion 'formidable' is a good rendering for either of these.

ลุ่มลึก is something I have come across in the sense of 'deep' [knowledge] eg. รู้ภาษาไทยให้ลุ่มลึก but I can't say I've seen it describing a personality before. I agree that 'deep' doesn't seem to fit given the way we tend to use it in English to describe someone who thinks a lot about the meaning of life or philosophy, etc.

Here's a blog post that uses ลุ่มลึก and seems to fill out the writer's intended meaning in other terms: http://downmerng.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post_544.html

...ซึ่งนั่นย่อมแสดงให้เห็นถึงความเป็นคนลุ่มลึก และอ่านสถานการณ์ขาด

...เป็นเรื่องของความเป็นผู้ใหญ่ ที่รู้จักกาละเทศะ

Will look forward to learning more about ลุ่มลึก myself.

Also, it strikes me that your first sentence might be read in at least two ways. Since I couldn't decide, I read a section of the original article and now feel confident that the intended meaning is:

"The new political generation (unlike those past) does not see Chawalit, 77, as [particularly] ลุ่มลึก or formidable."

Confident but happy to be proven wrong, as always.

aanon

Note: looking at the 'elegant expression' which appears in the article linked above, สุขุมลุ่มลึก, leads me to สุขุม in the dictionary: careful, circumspect, deliberate, prudent, judicious, cautious. At least this gives you a few extra options :-)

Edited October 23, 2009 by aanon

[mangkorn]

Very thoughtful post, aanon (as per usual). Approaching it from a more political perspective, no objective observer would really consider Chavalit to be any kind of deep thinker. As well, some among the newer political generation rightly sees him as anything but circumspect, prudent, or judicious. He may yet be formidable - in the eyes of some - but not necessarily to those who believe that his time has passed, particularly as his personal agenda becomes more transparent by the day.

In the parlance of contemporary English political usage, might the sticky part of that sentence mean that "they don't regard him as an honest broker"?

Or perhaps, "...as a wise elder statesman with only nation's best interests at heart"?

Sorry for the verbosity, but I'm wondering about the political meaning, more than word translation. (Thai tends to pack a whole lot of meaning into few words.)

Cheers.

Edited October 23, 2009 by mangkorn

[tgeezer]

A bit of back-up for my view, which I dared not post.

I am not a bit political but vaguely remember him as not the same stature of those who preceded him. I don't know what he is now so couldn't imagine how he would be relevent today, but the last post cleared that up with the 'elder statesman reference.

I think that the whole thing could be that he is deep in the mysterious, unpredictable sense and able to unsettle people or put them off-balance. น่าหลั่นไหว could be read having a capacity to produce anxiety. I read two sentences in So Sethaputra using the verb หวั่นไหว :

เขาหวั่นไหวไปว่าสงครานจจะเกิดขึ้น จะขู่เขาอย่างไร เขาก็ไม่หวี่นไหว

[SoftWater]

A bit of back-up for my view, which I dared not post.

I am not a bit political but vaguely remember him as not the same stature of those who preceded him. I don't know what he is now so couldn't imagine how he would be relevent today, but the last post cleared that up with the 'elder statesman reference.

I think that the whole thing could be that he is deep in the mysterious, unpredictable sense and able to unsettle people or put them off-balance. น่าหลั่นไหว could be read having a capacity to produce anxiety. I read two sentences in So Sethaputra using the verb หวั่นไหว :

เขาหวั่นไหวไปว่าสงครานจจะเกิดขึ้น จะขู่เขาอย่างไร เขาก็ไม่หวี่นไหว

Thanks tgeezer. Much of the problem around this sentence for me revolves around how น่า modifies the meaning of หวั่นไหว - I think you're correct that if it's to make sense of the context is must be, as you put it 'having the capacity to prouduce x', but I've never understood น่า like this before.

Edited October 24, 2009 by SoftWater

[tgeezer]

I didn't mean that exactly or did I? I am not good at explaining it but if you compare with น่ากลั่ว we hear that 'it is frightening' and we are frightened by it, it doesn't matter either way. น่า means ขอบ a propensity for something, nothing more than that; am I extending it too much perhaps, by saying what effect this has in situations where leadership is needed, which is an attempt to explain it in context.

[mangkorn]

I am not a bit political but vaguely remember him as not the same stature of those who preceded him. I don't know what he is now so couldn't imagine how he would be relevent today, but the last post cleared that up with the 'elder statesman reference...

As an old general who has held many a public office, has many allies and is experienced in the ways of political wheeling and dealing, he is yet formidable. He has recently been anointed to steer the good ship of the "Pheua Thaksin" party, which is what provokes so much mistrust for someone who claims that his only aim is national reconciliation...

The prefix น่า means something like "worthy of..." or the English suffix "...-able" - so น่าหลั่นไหว in this political context seems to be "capable of inspiring fear (and respect)" or "formidable," as you and other posters have suggested.

The fact that some people think he no longer carries that clout, is one political appreciation that drives the sentence. But in Thai politics, to quote David's old favorite wag, Yogi Berra: "The game ain't over 'til it's over."

Edited October 24, 2009 by mangkorn

[tgeezer]

I am not familiar with the word and your mistype thew me into a panic when I couldn't find it again! I am easily confused. or perhaps I should say that I am almost always confused. I am in the wrong place since this is translation, and above my head. I will get there in the end.

[SoftWater]

I am not familiar with the word and your mistype thew me into a panic when I couldn't find it again! I am easily confused. or perhaps I should say that I am almost always confused. I am in the wrong place since this is translation, and above my head. I will get there in the end.

You and me both, tgeezer, but keep up the posts. Threads take twists and turns, and your posts have sometimes led me to examine something that was perhaps unintentional, but equally as useful.