Is it an idiom?

Idioms are usually four-character phrases that tell a special meaning. Because most idioms either come from folk stories or legend stories, people are familiar them. These days, however, a lot of seemingly weird “idioms” spring up from the Internet.

When we first heard phrases like喜大普奔, we can’t even guess its meaning it until we see the explanations. For example, 不明觉厉 (bù mǐng juě lì) is made up by the first characters of four Chinese idioms, which is 喜闻乐见 (xǐ wěn lè jiàn), 大快人心 (dà kuài rén xīn), 普天同庆(pǔ tiān tǒng qìng), 奔走相告(bēn zǒu xiāng gào). So, the meaning of this weird idiom喜大普奔 is actually a combination of the four idioms: the news is so exhilarating that everyone is celebrating and spreading it to the rest of the world. We can use this popular “idiom” in the following example: “告诉你一个喜大普奔的消息吧, 期末考试取消了！”, which means “Here is news for celebration: The final examination is canceled!”

So much so, this is not a word that you Chinese tutor will choose to teach you in class, because this is an Internet word, which many people think that it should only be used for fun instead of in formal occasions. To those of you who are reading this post, maybe you may regard this as a way to have fun. Maybe we can also understand a thing from this language phenomenon that: language is always changing as culture changes and that we should keep up with times.