Rhetoric: less, medium, large, too

Let me tell a joke at the beginning. One day, when the husband went out, his wife asked him to take a detour to the vegetable market and buy some winter melons and the like.

At this time, the husband was unwilling and puzzled, so he asked: "How big of a winter melon should I buy?", and the wife replied: "A smaller one."

The results will be waiting for you. When the husband came home, he had a whole winter melon in his hand and praised it: "This melon is the smallest among the melons."

The wife was shocked by such a "smaller" winter melon, and she has been since then. Never let her husband buy vegetables again (the wife’s original intention was to buy part of the winter melon, not the whole one).

A joke is a joke that involves people's daily life. Some words are commonly used to express the relative differences in the size of things.

That is, "little, medium, big, too". One level of these four characters is greater than one level, and one level is greater than one level. This is common sense and does not need to be elaborated.

However, there are many interesting historical matters that can be said about these four.

For example, Zhuo recently learned about the word "wei", which has been used as the name of a military attaché since ancient times. In ancient times, there were four official titles for lieutenants: "second lieutenant", "lieutenant", "captain" and "tai lieutenant".

As you might expect, among the four, the "Taiwei" is the largest official. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, he was also the highest military officer in the central government and ranked among the "Three Dukes".

There is also the title of "Grand Master", as people often say, it sounds domineering and powerful without anger. This is indeed the case. Emperors often added it to high officials to show their honor.

There is also the familiar "prefect". Although not as domineering as the "grand master", he is still the highest chief executive of a county.

It can be seen from the above examples that in ancient times, the word "Tai" expressed the highest level, high and high. For example, our "Great Emperor" sounds very majestic when he hears it, and can make the emperor's head grow bigger.

When Zhuo mentioned "Tai Shang", he naturally thought of a passage in the "Book of Rites" that he often talked about in daily life.

What words? In fact, everyone is familiar with the sentence "It is not polite to come back but not return". Before this sentence, there is another sentence that everyone is not very familiar with. The full text is

In the "Book of Rites", it is said that the most valuable The most important thing is virtue (the most precious thing is virtue), and the second is kindness and repayment, courtesy and reciprocity.

You see, the ancients placed "virtue" before "reciprocity" and described it as "too supreme". How wise and free!

If people are trapped in courtesy and worldly communication and entertainment, they will inevitably drift with the crowd and relax their adherence to principles.

Therefore, the "Book of Rites" teaches us that "the most noble virtue is the most noble one." In the process of reciprocating courtesy, people should always pay attention to their own moral character and conduct, that is, they should not pretend to be noble (it can be noble originally), nor should they be vulgar and flattering (don't indulge in vulgarity). This is the way to advance and retreat in the whole body.

Based on this logic, isn’t it appropriate to call it “Tai”?

Learners transform turbidity

2019-03-28