Some People

[klons]

Whilst looking for something else under evacuate at thailanguage.com, บังคน caught my attention because of บางคน which I think may be commonly used and only a vowel length away from บังคน . In order to avoid one of those embarrassing unintentional slip ups, I thought caution should be exercised when saying บางคน.

Following the trail further, I was introduced to พระบังคน . This got me thinking how could something foul and something royal be the same. I could not find พระบังคน listed in any other of the dictionaries I use, but did find it used in a royal sense in wikipedia. Something about royal bathing containers.

Could it be that it came from an ancient fable, something like this,

(I’m making this up.)

Once upon a time a long time ago, there was a monk at a temple who was not well thought of and put in charge of latrines. But it turned out that he did such great deeds of merit, he landed a job as chief monk in a royal palace.

Would anyone have an explanation for this, or is it just coincidence?

บังคน   bangM khohnM

feces; urine; excrement; bodily discharge

บางคน baangM khohnM

some people

พระบังคน

phraH bangM khohnM

of royalty

บังคน bangM khohnM

of royalty

[kriswillems]

Do you mean this article?

http://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%AA%E0%...%B8%97%E0%B8%A2

It just talks about the royal toilet (in the past).

The toilet pot is called :

ที่ลงพระบังคน

The toilet (room) is called:

ห้องพระบัง

Go to the toilet is called:

(ทรง)ลงพระบังคน

Further on the article describes how the toilet looked like and what happened with the royal feces (they would let is float on a grathong on the water).

I am not sure I understand your question.

[meadish_sweetball]

Klons, I think you may have misunderstood the glossary at Thai-language.

บังคน is a formal word meaning 'bodily discharge'. When you place a พระ in front of it, you mean the bodily discharge of royalty. Adding พระ as a prefix is how many nouns are formed in the Royal Language.

พระ itself is a general catch-all word meaning 'holy, sacred' and the core meaning is not 'monk', even though a person learning Thai from Thais may often encounter the word used to refer to a monk for the first time.

In other words, when a medical doctor tending to a royal person writes his notes, he should use พระบังคน referring to 'bodily discharges' of the royal person.

When he is referring to bodily discharges of a commoner, he uses บังคน or a less formal word.

When the glossary says "บังคน of royalty" it does not mean that the meaning of บังคน IS 'of royalty', it intends to say that พระบังคน means 'bodily discharge of a royal person'. Hope that clears up your question.

[yoot]

From Dr.Wit's dictionary;

บังคน (bung-kon)

(น.) (ราชาศัพท์) อุจจาระหรือปัสสาวะ. n. fecal matter, feces, urine, excrement.

Syn. roy. พระบังคน

บังคน can not be used for commoner. It's used for royal family, while พระบังคน is only used for the king and the queen and probably for crown prince and crown princess too.

[bhoydy]

From the Domnern Sathienpong dictionary

บังคน (royal) excrement

บังคนเบา (royal) urine

บังคนหนัก (royal) feces

[meadish_sweetball]

From Dr.Wit's dictionary;

บังคน (bung-kon)

(น.) (ราชาศัพท์) อุจจาระหรือปัสสาวะ. n. fecal matter, feces, urine, excrement.

Syn. roy. พระบังคน

บังคน can not be used for commoner. It's used for royal family, while พระบังคน is only used for the king and the queen and probably for crown prince and crown princess too.

Thank you for the correction. That makes sense.

[klons]

Thanks all for clearing that up. I mistakenly thought that a noun followed by พระบังคน

meant the noun was a royal object.

Now I am wondering about:

กระ a prefix added to some words making them more intense

Maybe I got it wrong, but the other day I thought I heard กระฟัง , which I

thought would mean listen carefully (more intensely than normal)

But กระฟัง is not in the dictionary that I can find. Is the use of กระ left

up to the discretion of the speaker or does it need to be in a dictionary to be legitimate?