Hokkien, on the tongues of Tsinoys, has grown and evolved, taking on a life of its own. Sometimes words simply fail us. With some creativity, Tsinoys have strung together words to form colorful phrases that simply hit the bull’s eye.
Here are some expressions unique to Hokkien as favored by Tsinoys.
| Idioms, expressions | Hokkien pronunciation | Literal translation | Meaning |
| 歹名歹聲 | p’ai mia p’ai snia | bad name, bad sound | bad reputation |
| 原班人馬 | guan pan lin ma | identical class of people with horses | same batch of people |
| 無後手 | bo aw tsiu | no afterwards hand | leaving work unfinished; not returning things to their proper places |
| 招軍買馬 | tsio kun bu-e beh | recruit army to buy horses | to influence people to join him for ulterior motive |
|
一樣米餵 百樣人 | tsit yniu bi tsi pâ yniu lang | same variety of rice feeds different people | a common resource or capital can produce different outcomes |