喜大普奔

What does 喜大普奔 mean?

喜大普奔 packs four idioms into one word: it takes the first two characters from 喜闻乐见 (a joy to see), 大快人心 (delighting everyone), 普天同庆 (the whole world celebrates) and 奔走相告 (running to spread the news). Netizens deploy it to announce supposedly amazing news with maximum pomp. The catch is that it is nearly always half ironic, tacked onto exam cancellations, delayed releases, or a rival team losing. The more trivial the news, the funnier the four-idiom fanfare.

Where does 喜大普奔 come from?

The word belongs to a 2013 wave Chinese media nicknamed 网络新成语, internet neo-idioms, in which netizens compressed four-character idioms into single mashup words. The Chinese site of the New York Times ran a piece on the phenomenon on 2013-10-30, and the People's Daily opinion page weighed in on 2013-12-11, arguing the coinages were wordplay rather than a threat to the language. Most 2013 inventions have faded; 喜大普奔 survived as the standard sarcastic cheer.

How to use 喜大普奔

• 他升职的消息一出，群里一片喜大普奔。
  Tā shēngzhí de xiāoxi yì chū, qún lǐ yí piàn xǐ dà pǔ bēn.
  The moment news of his promotion dropped, the group chat erupted in universal celebration.
• 期末考取消？喜大普奔！
  Qīmò kǎo qǔxiāo? Xǐ dà pǔ bēn!
  Final exams cancelled? Sound the trumpets!