"Singing in the daytime must be indulged in wine, and youth is a good companion to return home." --Du Fu
Drinking is a way for us to relax, we drink when we have bad things, and we drink when we have happy things. Unconsciously, wine has become an indispensable part of our lives. When encountering "a thousand glasses of wine for a confidant", we tend to drink more because of the moment.
The idiom "drunk as mud" is what we use to describe a person's state after drinking a lot of wine. So why drunk like "mud"? What does this mud mean?
People drunk like mud? People will be unsteady after getting drunk, and usually lie there weakly, like a pool of mud. So it's called drunk as mud, which is a misunderstanding of many people.
In fact, the "mud" here is not the "mud" as we now understand it. Based on its provenance, we can conclude that the "mud" here actually refers to a bug. So what kind of bug is it?
"There are insects in the South China Sea, boneless, and the name is mud. In the water is to live, lost water is drunk. --Southern Song Dynasty Wu Zeng's "Can Change the Zhai Manga Record • Facts" This is the source of "drunk as mud".
The "mud" bug seems to have no bones, it is a kind of mollusk like the earthworm today, it mostly survives in the South China Sea, and when it is in the water, it can flutter, but when it leaves the water, it is like a person drunk.
In the beginning we used the term "mud" to describe the bug as "mud". And now, we are using the state of "mud" leaving the water to describe a person who is drunk.
The earliest use of the word "mud" to describe drunkenness was recorded during the Han Dynasty. In the "Later Han Dynasty Book of Rulin Biography and Zhou Ze Biography", there is a record: "Born in a disharmonious life, as a wife too often, one year old three hundred and sixty days, three hundred and fifty-nine days fasting, one day without fasting drunk as mud." ”
It is about a woman, who is the wife of Zhou Ze, the bureaucrat who was in charge of the ceremonial system at that time. This Zhou Ze loves his job and is dedicated, often does not return home at night, and lives in the unit. Zhou Ze's wife was very worried about him, so she ran to the unit to visit her husband. But the husband was very unsympathetic and thought that the wife had violated the law of etiquette, and he thought that the wife had committed fasting.
This Zhou Ze fasted 359 days a year, and the remaining day he drank wildly, drank a lot, and was drunk like mud.
This was the first documented appearance of drunkenness.
With the passage of time, the "mud" bug has gradually been forgotten. Instead, most of them are wangwen shengyi thinks that he is drunk, like a pool of mud. But we need to understand that this understanding is not officially recognized. So at least for now, it's still in the form of a "mud" bug.
Why? Because sometimes, many people look at the habit of literal life, and they can really change the official interpretation of words, so that they can be wrong.
For example, the famous idiom: July flowing fire, originally from the "Book of Poetry": "July flowing fire, September clothing", its practical use to describe the weather cooler. But because in practice, too many people tend to look at the literal meaning and understand the word as hot weather. Because there are too many people using it, the official interpretation of the term is now: 1. it is used to describe the cooler weather; 2. it is used to describe the hot weather.
A little knowledge, how to see the official interpretation change? The first way is to flip through the latest version of the dictionary. The updated iteration of the dictionary represents another change in the meaning of a word. The latest version of the dictionary explains the meaning of the most authoritative word. Route 2: The official website usually tells everyone when the meaning of the word is changed. When the meaning of a word changes and appears in the latest version of the dictionary, the meaning of the word has changed at the moment the dictionary is released.
Some knowledge may seem useless, but it is still very useful. On the one hand, we will attack some words of alternativeity, but on the other hand, our officials are also respecting the public. Therefore, in the process of cultural inheritance, it is not a bad thing for us to know a little more, in case it comes in handy one day?
Text | Guoxue Grand View Garden
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