What does it mean to make a fool of yourself?

Make a fool of yourself, as the saying goes, is to make a fool of yourself in front of people and make jokes.

Explanation:

(1) refers to make a fool of yourself in front of people and make jokes.

(2) refers to deliberately make a gaffes, make people laugh.

Source:

Lao She's "Salesgirl" Scene 2: "Selling sugar, such a big girl! You are still being teased, and your mother is making a fool of herself. The more I think about it, the more timid I am! "

Chapter 54 of Lu Yao's Ordinary World: "In the Yangko Team of Tanzi Village, Wang Manyin painted a white color on his nose, hung a donkey string bell obliquely on his body, shook a flying brush in his hand, and threw his legs to pretend to be a clown, which attracted all the dolls to watch him make a fool of himself."

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Now we often say that some people make a fool of themselves, which means that some people make a fool of themselves in front of others, make jokes and describe some people as embarrassed and do not pay attention to reality.

There are usually two ways to trace the etymology of "turning yourself into a monkey".

The first one is interpreted as showing the appearance of outsiders, which is unreasonable and strange.

The traffic in ancient China was not as convenient as it is now, and the communication between countries was not as frequent as it is now. Many times, the ancients thought that only people in China were normal. Therefore, it is often surprising and even scary to see or hear the faces or news of people from other places by chance. They think that outsiders are monsters born by cats, dogs and other animals. They look strange, ugly and even eat people. Therefore, when the ancients scolded or insulted others, they usually used the word "make a fool of yourself".

The second view interprets making a fool of yourself as humiliating China people in foreign countries and places other than China.

Since modern times, the door of China has been opened, and exchanges between China and foreign countries have become more and more frequent. But at first, due to the long-term closure of China, many people knew nothing about foreign countries. When they come to foreign countries, they will feel extremely uncomfortable and often make some hilarious low-level mistakes. These negative news spread to China, and some nosy people often said that they went abroad to embarrass China people, just to make a fool of themselves.

In Xia Yan's practice of emancipating the mind, studying hard and practicing hard, reading more books won't make a fool of yourself, but it's good to learn some basic knowledge. In Xu Huaizhong's "Anecdotes of the Western Front", there are also female soldiers in the class. Some people advocate treating it as a male soldier, while others push it. Some people think that would be too embarrassing.

In fact, in either case, it has something to do with China's lack of communication and interaction with foreign countries in the past and its ignorance of other countries' cultures.