It is really difficult for Lu Shuxiang to comment on the article

Tang Xiaomin

Lü Shuxiang once commented on an essay by the writer Feng Mu. Cut the original text in half. He felt that this made the article "refined". It is refined, but the charm and beauty of the original text are mostly gone. Lü Shuxiang's commentary hardly looks at the aesthetic appeal of the work, but only analyzes the words. From this point of view, the "article" cannot be commented on by a linguist like Lu Shuxiang. Linguists understand words and phrases, although the article is composed of words and sentences, but after the composition, it is a new thing, just like the Forbidden City or the Taj Mahal is "composed" of bricks and tiles, but after the composition is a beautiful architecture. To evaluate the beauty of a building, it takes people in another field, which is what architects and aestheticians are good at, not those who study making bricks and tiles. It is not on the point to ask the brick-making craftsmen to evaluate the beauty of the Forbidden City or the Taj Mahal. It's not their specialty and it's beyond their reach. Ironically, in a specific period in China, these linguists were allowed to evaluate articles and guide language teaching.