The older generation often said, "Rice can be eaten indiscriminately, but words cannot be spoken indiscriminately." "This is because the elderly are more superstitious and think that many of the unlucky words spoken will come true, but most of the young people will not take it seriously." After reading the personal experience of this "prophet" of the Republic of China, Xiaobian also believed that "words cannot be said indiscriminately".
The name of the "prophet" was Liu Bannong. Many people may not be familiar with this name, but liu Bannong invented the Chinese character "she", which everyone uses now. Don't look at "she" is just a simple third-person pronoun, in ancient times or even in the early years of the Republic of China, China did not use the female "she" to distinguish it from the male "he" writing habit.
So whether we watch "Dream of the Red Chamber" or "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the female characters in it use "he" to refer to it. Liu Bannong is a famous linguist who advocates new culture and promotes vernacular language, and he has seen many translators translating the female third-person pronoun "she" of foreign works often translated as "his daughter" and "that woman's", which always feels very strange.
In 1917, Liu Bannong was hired as a professor of Chinese literature at Peking University. During this period, he first proposed the use of "she" as a female third-person pronoun, which immediately caused a heated discussion. At that time, everyone was not sure how to use this word, and even Lu Xun's works could only find a "Yi" character from the Wu dialect as a female third-person pronoun.
In order to promote "she", Liu Bannong also specially wrote a poem "Teach Me How not to miss her" in 1920, which pioneered the use of this word. Therefore, it is very convenient for us to write and read articles now, and it is very convenient to distinguish between "she" and "he", which has a great credit from Liu Bannong.
Liu Bannong was born in the seventeenth year of Guangxu (1891), although he was brilliant from an early age and achieved a lot when he grew up, unfortunately he did not live long, and only lived for 43 years before he died. Miraculously, Liu Bannong actually accurately predicted his own death, although he only said it casually.
In 1934, the year of Liu Bannong's death, in order to collect the information needed to compile the "Fangyin Dictionary" and the "Map of Chinese Dialects", he went to Suiyuan and Inner Mongolia in the summer to investigate the dialect dialects. When it was time to stay at night, due to the limited conditions, everyone could only live in a grass house in the countryside.
The other companions chose to sleep on the earth kang, except for Liu Bannong, who set up a makeshift bed in the room, on which he deliberately made a stiff and immobile appearance, joking: "I am a coffin in the middle hall!" The companions laughed when they heard it, and no one took it seriously.
Who knows that Liu Bannong really contracted a fever during this business trip, and died in Beiping after saying that sentence in January. One time it may have been a coincidence, but twice it really made people wonder if he really had the power to prophesy. Liu Bannong had contacts with Xu Zhimo before his death, and we all know that Xu Zhimo died because of a plane crash.
Xu Zhimo died on November 19, 1931. In November, he attended a gathering of friends, including Liu Bannong. Liu Bannong liked to joke, and when he heard that Xu Zhimo was going to take a plane, he said that he never dared to sit, he was afraid that the plane would go out of shape. Xu Zhimo was not at ease, and continued Liu Bannong's words that if he really "flew to death", he also asked Liu Bannong to make a tie for him.
Just as the party was about to end, the two shook hands and repeated the joke above. Liu Bannong patted his chest and promised that he would keep his promise, even if he knew that Xu Zhimo really had an accident, when he heard the news, he was painful and remorseful. He has accurately predicted Xu Zhimo and his own death, and it is not known whether Liu Bannong really has his own prophetic physique.