I was talking to this lady about my motorbike, and she said something about 'ขับสิ่ง' (spelling is probably wrong, I'm just guessing here). Then she made a hand gesture that looked like weaving back and forth.

Anyone know what 'sing' means?

ขับ แซง perhaps? Overtaking vehicle - driving past a vehicle.

It was definitely 'sing', not 'saeng'.

DavidHouston, who has a propensity to send IMs more often than forum replies, sent me:

See http://www.thai-language.com/id/141749 , second definition. The word is a diminutive of the English word "racing" and is used to describe Thai teen illegal street racing.

Although, the lady isn't the type to say anything negative/diminutive, so maybe that definition isn't quite right . . . plus, I'm already far into my 20's, and don't act like a เด็กเวน

ฃิ่ง sing from racing means driving fast and recklessly.

or was Sing as in Singha. Ride drunk.

But why was it kup drive and not kii as in ride.

But why was it kup drive and not kii as in ride.

hmmmm good point . . . I was using the word ขับ in the conversation, and maybe she just used it as a continuation of my farang way of saying things incorrectly

But why was it kup drive and not kii as in ride.

hmmmm good point . . . I was using the word ขับ in the conversation, and maybe she just used it as a continuation of my farang way of saying things incorrectly

I often hear the phrase "ขับรถ" to mean "ride motorbike". "ขับ" seems to be a common way to say "ride".

<br />It was definitely 'sing', not 'saeng'.<br /><br />DavidHouston, who has a propensity to send IMs more often than forum replies, sent me:<br /><font color="#1C2837"><font size="2">

See <a href='http://www.thai-language.com/id/141749' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.thai-language.com/id/141749</a> , second definition. The word is a diminutive of the English word "racing" and is used to describe Thai teen illegal street racing.

</font></font><br /> <br /><font color="#1C2837"><font size="2">Although, the lady isn't the type to say anything negative/diminutive, so maybe that definition isn't quite right . . . plus, I'm already far into my 20's, and don't act like a เด็กเวน </font></font><img src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif" /><br />

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I am sure David's explanation is right, it is a very common expression for driving fast and recklessly. You may have missed the rest of what she said, perhaps she was just suggesting that you be careful, or she was not talking about you at all, but about somebody else, or the Thai traffic in general?

See http://www.thai-language.com/id/141749 , second definition. The word is a diminutive of the English word "racing" and is used to describe Thai teen illegal street racing.

While "diminutive" might be accurate here, it also carries connotations to me of being rather "cutesy"--but there's nothing intentionally cutesy about the shortening of "racing" to "sing", it's just what happens to a lot of English words when they become widely used in the Thai language. "Sing" isn't at all limited to kids' illegal street racing either--it's widely known and used by people of all ages to describe what Mikenyork defines as:

ฃิ่ง sing from racing means driving fast and recklessly.

Which is much closer to a perfect definition--except "sing" is spelled ซิ่ง, with sor soh (ซ), not "king" with khor khuat (ฃ). I should also point out that "sing" is used to describe modified or "sport" model vehicles that appear to be capable of being driven fast, regardless of whether they actually are, as well as people whose manner and style of dress make them seem like the kind of person who would drive recklessly--again, regardless of whether or not they actually do.

As for whether to use khap (ขับ) or khee (ขี่) for motorbikes, they're generally interchangeable--just like "drive" and "ride" are in English.

Nice responses--though like Peppy I'd like to take issue with thai-language.com's use of "diminutive." This appears to be an incorrect use of the word.

A diminutive form doesn't mean a shortened form, a diminutive form is a derived form that indicates a lesser degree of the original word. That can be either literally smaller/younger, or else figuratively small/cute/endearing. These are common in Spanish, for example, with -ito/-ita (among other endings): señora (Mrs.) > señorita (Ms.); poco (a little) > poquito (a smidgen).

The shortening of 'racing' ซิ่ง is more like an example of apheresis. The unstressed portion of the word, in this case the entire first syllable, is dropped, and only the stressed part remains. It's not a diminutive form, if we are to use the commonly understood sense of the term.

Are you sure the first word was "kap" and not "boom" ?

The hand gesture seems to suggest as much

I'm pretty sure it describes the action of weaving in and out of traffic, as most thai drivers do.

Using Google-Thailand with the thai term; “ขับซิ่ง” brought up 2.7 MILLION hits in 0.11 seconds. A brief perusal of the topic headers show this is a VERY COMMON term for many types of racing sports (drift, drag, etc). It also carries the connotation of reckless driving as evidenced by the many pix of wrecked cars and mangled dead bodies.

I think the puzzle is sol-ved by the answers you've been provided with.

FWIW: when I learned the difference between ขับ and ขี่ long ago; my thai teacher explained that anything which you 'straddle' (goes between your legs) you ขี่ (bicycles, motocy's, horses, buffaloes, etc) and anything you get into or sit in a regular 'chair' type seat you ขับ (cars, trucks, tractors, etc). I have heard thais use ขับ interchangeably with ขี่ in common speech, so it appears the usage of these words isn't nearly as cut into stone as some other words are.

Edited January 28, 201115 yr by tod-daniels

Just a note about Google searches--because of the way they do the searching, you really have to put a phrase in quotes to get an accurate idea of how many true hits there are.

If you put "ขับซิ่ง" into Google in quote marks, just now it returned 107,000 hits. That's much more realistic. For a phrase with numbers of hits in this range, we can safely say the term is commonly used, but it of course pales in comparison to phrases like "ความรู้" which when searched in quotes returns 80,000,000 hits!

You're right of course.

When I search for engrish phrases I always use quotes. I neglected to use quotes with this thai term and noticed some of the hits were with the words split apart, often even in different sentences.

Sorry about that, I stand humbly erected, err corrected.

Still, at least we agree "ขับซิ่ง" is a term commonly used..