disclaimer: Magicwand is not a writer or translator. It may contain wrong translation or interpetation of chinese character.

One scholar named Mr. Kim vistited his long friend who haven't seen each other for very long time.
The sun was setting and it was time for dinner and friend's son asked from outside.
Shall i "人良卜一" ? and
Friend replied "月月山山".
Mr. Kim being a scholar, understood the conversation and replied.
"天脫冠一點" and "乃失杖橫帶"
"犬者禾重" is "丁口竹天"
and frined was totally embarrassed and served him dinner.

definition:
"人良卜一" = (食上)
"月月山山" = (朋出)
"天脫冠一點" = (犬)
"乃失杖橫帶" = (子)
"犬者禾重" = (猪種)
"丁口竹天" = (可笑)
If you understand chinese characters does this make sense?
i combined two different version of story to make it more intresting.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

I must admit I'm a bit confused as a Mandarin speaker.

I think I roughly get the idea, but the phrasing is a bit uncommon and the humour is a bit lost on me. Maybe I'm missing the point a bit, but if I remember correctly usually the composition characters (e.g. 月月山山) would have a stand-alone meaning that works as well.

Definitely like the idea though - this sort of word/radical play is very interesting in Chinese and used sometimes in what are called "对联", which tends to be 2 phrases (and often a separate "top" phrase that adds to the theme) that have a rhyming structure, character for character correspondence, and phrase to phrase correspondence. One example could be the below:

欠食饮泉，白水岂能度日
麻石磨粉，分米庶可充饥

The rough meaning is:
Drink from the spring as I lack food, how can I survive with just water?
Make flour from the rough stone mill, even a slight bit of rice could satiate.

I used simplified Chinese where traditional probably works better. This one works on quite a few levels, but I'll just mention some of the more obvious ones:

1. "欠食" (lacking food) is merged into "饮" (drink), "泉"(spring) is broken into "白水" (bare water).
2. "麻石" (rough stone) is merged into "磨" (to mill), "粉" (powder) is broken into "分米" (just a bit of rice, also has the meaning of "splitting rice).
3. There is correspondence on a character by character and word by word basis (e.g. each character/word in the second phrase is of the same type as the character in the first phrase).
4. The first phrase has a more depressed/angry tone whereas the second phrase is a bit more upbeat - this works because quite often "对联" is in a "question" and "answer" format between two parties.

illluck:

Very intresting reply.
as i stated in disclaimer i have very limited chinese knowledge and try to translate what i read.
I have met few ppl who used phrase 丁口竹天 which i had no idea what it meant (i guess that was the purpose).
after reading the story i now understand the meaning behind it and now i appreciate them and i seldom use it myself.

again thank you for your reply.

_________________
"The more we think we know about
The greater the unknown"
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson