stock phrase about men?

[Stephen Hodge]

It is also interesting to note there is no unaminous understanding of the
term "rma 'byed-pa" even among native informants.  Matthew Kapstein tells us
his infomant thought it meant "teasing / poking fun" -- a meaning which
seems plausible.  Yet I have just been looking at Sumatiratna's Mun-sel
sgron-me (Tib-Mong Dictionary) and there we find this gloss in Tibetan (with
same sense in Mong): "mo-mtshan gdangs-pa" -- I'll leave translations to
others but the colloquial English would perhaps be "with spread / opened
legs".  So here we are back in the realm of the overtly sexual (pun
unintended) !  I think Jonathan will eventually end up with a rather long
footnote for this phrase :)

In passing, could I also draw attention to this massive (approx 2900 pages)
2 volume Tibetan-Mongolian dictionary -- copies seem quite rare and little
known even to Tibetologists -- but I have often found it exteremely useful
for "decoding" Tibetan terms I have utterly failed to find anywhere else.
Of course, there is no guarantee that the Mongolian (& sometimes
accompanying Tib explanations) glosses are correct but they are very
valuable all the same.

For those who might be interested in tracking down a set, here are the
details:
Auth:    Sumatiratna
Title:    Bod Hor kyi brda-yig ming-tshig don gsum gsal-bar-byed-pa mun-sel
sgron-me
Pub:    Corpus Scriptorum Mongolorum (Ulan Batur 1959)