二十幾歲嘛，不能輕視年青人。周瑜出身騎兵，才十六歲，你們不要擺老資格。

They are only 20-odd years old. Don’t take the young people lightly. Chou Yu started as a cavalryman. He was only 16 when he became the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Wu. Please don’t think that you are old timers.

old timer是什么意思？

My comments:

An old timer is someone old and especially senior in ranking and experience.

As name suggests, an old timer is someone who has been around for a long time, and therefore experienced a lot during “old times”, i.e. times long gone by.

In other words, an old timer has been there, done that, as they say.

In real life, that’s exactly what old timers like to brag about, that they have been there, seen all and done all that.

Take what they have to say with a liberal pinch of salt. A lot of times, you see, they’re just talking, sometimes in a mere attempt to bully the young. Many of them haven’t done anything at all, if all truth be told, even though that fact will never stop them talking.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.