| 士 by itself can mean gentleman. Originally it meant a court official. The 的 in 的士 (here a phonetic transcription) is a grammatical particle used for possesive case and marking adjectives. The translation software would have ignored it as there was no preceding noun phrase.
士 is used as an 's' in transcription. For example;
巴士 bus, 貼士 tip, 多士 toast, 芝士 cheese, 士多 store, 士多啤梨 strawberry
@HK_Newbie100: You must mean Colloquial Cantonese and Putonghua Equivalents by Zeng Zifan trans. S.K. Lai
By the way, 的士 is written on the side and lights of HK taxis, so it is fair to say it is the most appropriate term here.
Last edited by neither3nor4; 22-06-2006 at 10:27 AM.
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