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A few days ago, I saw that Zeng Guofan had used “repeated defeats and repeated battles” instead of “repeated battles and repeated defeats”, so he won the emperor’s award, and we couldn’t help thinking about the meaning of “crunching words” to us.
In terms of the meanings of “repeated defeats and repeated battles” and “repeated battles and repeated defeats”, the two are completely similar. If you go to “crunching words”, it is not difficult to see that the difference between the two is “war” and “defeat” Location is different. Then we look at it from the perspective of literature and art. The former gives people the feeling of facing difficulties, while the latter seems to be lacking in ability. The difference between these two words makes people feel this way. My personal opinion is that it is due to our reading order and cognitive methods. Our cognitive method for the native language is “word → object or event → word meaning mapping”, the word or character that appears first will be “mapped” in the brain first, and the word or character that appears later is relative to the previous word or character ” Mapping” will be one beat slower, so there is a difference in meaning. For this example, it is “fight and failure” that first maps the picture of “war”, we will associate the result of “war”, and the result is ” “Failure”, when the association and the result are obtained, the picture of failure will be deduced in the brain, so there will be a feeling of “insufficient ability”, but what about “repeated defeats and repeated battles”? On the contrary, map the word “defeat” first, and if there is “defeat”, there will be a struggle. Since this struggle has a result, but still chooses “war”, it gives people a feeling of facing difficulties. If the words “war” and “defeat” are “mapped” in the brain at the same time, then there will be no sense of disparity after the order is interchanged.
The above talked about the different feelings obtained after the two words exchanged positions, so what if it is one word?
In Mr. Guo Moruo’s play “Qu Yuan”, Chanjuan scolded Song Yu and said, “You are a spineless literati!” He listened in the audience during the performance. “Three words. An actor reminded him to change “yes” to “this”, “You spineless literati!” is enough.
“Cut the Words” – Zhu Guangqian
I quoted Mr. Zhu Guangqian’s article to examine the feeling of this replacement word. If we don’t dig deep into the sentences “You are a spineless literati!” and “You spineless literati!” we can hardly see the difference, these two sentences are exactly the same sentence, just The words have been changed, but the meaning is exactly the same. The difference between “yes” and “this” can be said to be minimal, but in physics, it is this negligible force (Coulomb force, for example) that affects the development of the world, so we have to “crunch words” again.
If you were asked the difference between “yes” and “this”, what would you answer? If you don’t know, you might as well use these two words to form a word or phrase. When I form words, the first thing that comes to my mind is “whether” and “this”. The human brain has inertial thinking. Sometimes it is not good, but sometimes it can be used.
Looking at the word “whether”, it is composed of “yes” and “no”. There is doubt in it, and “this” directly refers to a certain thing or thing. The word itself carries a message, which is “surely” ”, according to the context, when Chanjuan wants to scold someone, the more affirmative the tone, the more flavor the writers need. The habit of thinking digs for us the meanings of these words that we recognize in our brains.
According to the above method, it can be seen that when the script of “Qu Yuan” uses the phrase “you spineless literati!”, it looks better.
This is the charm of “biting words”, which is exactly what it is called: a small error, a thousand miles. “Cut down on words” can make the article gain a unique literary beauty.
But we need to know, if we scrutinize every word, what’s the point? We can’t “bite words” for a lifetime.
I admit that it’s good to be literal, but I also want to make the point that we can’t “crunch” for the rest of our lives. To put it more vulgarly, “crunching words” is very tiring. Judging from the examples of “repeated battles and repeated defeats”, “repeated defeats and repeated battles”, and the examples of “yes” and “this”, it takes a lot of energy and time to scrutinize these things over and over again, not to mention that scrutiny of words requires scrutiny based on evidence. , if it is an overhead scrutiny or an association, it will make readers very difficult to read these words.
For example, in Su Dongpo’s poem “Huishan Cooking Xiaolong Tuan” three or four lines “bring the small moon in the sky alone to try the second spring in the world” and “the small moon in the sky” are associated with the tea “Xiao Long Tuan”. If you don’t know this connection, the original text simply doesn’t make sense.
“Cut the Words” – Zhu Guangqian
Mr. Zhu Guangqian’s views on Su Dongpo’s poems are exactly my views. If I study hard in the writing, then this article will also become Mr. Lu Xun’s writing, Kong Yiji’s image of a person who is “the person who is not the same” is elusive. , so it is not advisable to “crunch the words” vigorously in the article.
The most important role of language in daily life is communication. If you “choose words”, it will greatly affect people’s communication. For oneself, it takes time to scrutinize words, no time to scrutinize, most of the time Is overhead, associative. For others, the purpose of communication is to express meaning, not to show literary atmosphere and literary style. Although “biting words” itself is to express ideas, if it is association, it is elusive, if it is based on factual evidence. Words and words are often invisible to others. Only when we write words into writing can we have time and thoughts to think deeply, but it cannot be contrary to what was written in the previous paragraph.
Let’s talk about the matter of “choosing words” in the article. Even if we don’t scrutinize hard and only scrutinize individual words, what will we get? If you don’t read an article in depth and analyze it carefully, how many people will care about the words you scrutinize?
That’s why “crunching words” is exhausting, it’s a laborious, but not necessarily beneficial, thing.
So, is “crunching words” any good?
This is actually an unanswered question, and we can’t say that we can’t “snap words” because it can benefit people, but we can’t deny it. I said that “crunching words” is not necessarily good, but it does not mean that it is useless and good. To obtain this benefit, our articles need to follow a “hidden rule”, not too much, not too little, and scrutinize what is suitable, not suitable It may be counterproductive to scrutinize the game at the same time. “Focus on words” itself is a delicate balance relationship , just like a game of chess. If one of the two sides is too strong or too weak, then there is nothing to look forward to in this game, and you will not understand it. The fun of chess is only when the strength of the two sides reaches a delicate balance. The same is true of literature. There are pros and cons. The teacher will teach us to be detailed. This is not the ability to deal with the composition of the examination room, but something that needs to be done in any writing. There are many things, if you want to get a balance , then one or more of the other items should be less. Literature is like a game of chess, and only a delicate balance can reveal its beauty .
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