原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
趕著公公 You Two Grannies Know Things
八戒道：「你這兩個奶奶知事。」眾校尉道：「這和尚委不識貨，怎麼趕著公公叫起奶奶來耶？」八戒道：「你这两个奶奶知事。」众校尉道：「这和尚委不识货，怎么赶着公公叫起奶奶来耶？」
逐句解 Line by line
八戒道：「你這兩個奶奶知事。」
八戒道：「你这两个奶奶知事。」
Eight Rules said, "You two grandmothers know what's what."
奶奶 takes a weak second syllable, as every doubled term of address does. Seven of the chapter's eleven such terms fall in this passage and the next, inside sixty characters.
眾校尉道：「這和尚委不識貨，怎麼趕著公公叫起奶奶來耶？」
众校尉道：「这和尚委不识货，怎么赶着公公叫起奶奶来耶？」
The guardsmen said, "This monk truly cannot tell one thing from another. How does he go calling the gentlemen 'grandmother'?"
公公 is the standing way of addressing a palace eunuch, and it is also the ordinary word for a husband's father — which is exactly the ambiguity Eight Rules is about to exploit. 著 is the weak zhe. 不識貨 is 'cannot tell one grade of goods from another', a market phrase turned on a person.
The two men who intervened for him are palace eunuchs, and Eight Rules has addressed them as women. Whether he has blundered or is being deliberately offensive is left entirely open, and the guardsmen's correction assumes the first.
不識貨 is nicely chosen. It is what you say of a customer who cannot judge merchandise, and the pilgrims have spent this whole episode failing to buy anything.