In ancient times, humans invented writing to replace the tradition of knotted rope memorization, and they were inspired by hunting to identify the different footprints of birds and beasts, and then created the deed. Words are not only the record symbols of speech and thought, but also the basic material for the construction of the edifice of articles.

Folklore has it that when Cangjie made words, there was a talisman of ghosts and gods crying at night and corn falling from the sky. It was not until the time of the Yellow Emperor that the text began to be burned and used to record political and civil affairs. The emperors of the past dynasties ruled the country, and they must unify the language and writing, so they also sent full-time officials to investigate and collect the dialects and local languages of various regions, and mark the different pronunciation tones of each word, so as to achieve the purpose of standardizing the use of words. According to the records of "Zhou Li: Diguan Situ II", at the beginning of the Ji and Zhou dynasties, "Baoshi" officials were set up, and they were dedicated to teaching the reading and reading of the "Six Books". Qin Shi Huang unified China, and after burning ancient classics, he abolished the "Baoshi" management and education system, and replaced it with the responsibility of senior administrative officials to participate in the management of the unified script. As a result, Li Si deleted the scripts and the fonts used by the countries to standardize the small seals of the Qin Dynasty, while the official books created by Cheng Miao (the year of birth and death is unknown, the character Yuan Cen Qin Shi Huang changed the seal script to the official script) created the official book, and gradually eliminated the seal script.

At the beginning of the founding of the Han Dynasty, in the many legal decrees drafted by Xiao He, different degrees of strict requirements were stipulated for the writing level of various officials. For example, when admitting students to the official position of "Taishi", in addition to examining the ability to memorize books, it is also necessary to test the level of mastering the "six bodies" of writing (ancient script, odd characters, seal script, official script, Miao seal, and insect script); In addition, if there is a typo in the documents submitted to the imperial court, the officials or people at that time will be impeached or brought to justice. Therefore, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Lang Zhong ordered Shi Jian to be held accountable for being killed because the word "horse" in his recital was missing a painting. This story, although it only mocks Shi Jian's cautiousness and timidity, also reflects the importance of typos in that era. It is precisely because of the beginning of the Han Dynasty that there was a decree attaching great importance to the level of writing, so Sima Xiangru's "Fan Jiang Chapter", because there is no repetition of a single word in it, became a literacy textbook and examination textbook at that time. In the Xuan and Cheng dynasties of the Western Han Dynasty, they not only strongly advocated Confucian educational thought, but also specially recruited talents who could be proficient in written exegesis. Because of this, Zhang Chang during the time of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty (Jing Zhaoyin when Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty was born in the year of Emperor Gaoshan of the Han Dynasty in the year of ?-48 BC), was especially good at the orthophonic interpretation of words; During the reign of Emperor Ping of the Han Dynasty, Yang Xiong specially edited a 2,040-character "Discipline Chapter" (this book has been lost) according to the strange and remote characters collected from all sides. Writers in this period were proficient in the phonetic meaning of ancient characters through the study of "Erya" and "Cangjie". Therefore, at that time, any scholar who could make up a huge work must have been able to understand the meaning of ancient characters. In addition, the literati and writers of the Western Han Dynasty were keen to describe the Yuefu genre of Kyoto and gardens, and in order to achieve the purpose of rendering the color of the environment and not repeating the rhyme, the phonetic meaning of the characters they adopted was not only remote and strange, but also dazzling, especially when later generations recited it, they could not help but be discouraged. In addition to the cultural system and artistic atmosphere of the time, it is indeed closely related to the general high level of ancient literature of the writers at that time, because they should not find it particularly difficult to read each other's articles at that time. However, since entering the Eastern Han Dynasty, the style of study, like the previous focus and study of the phonetic meaning of words, has gradually declined. Since then, all interpretations of ancient and profound words have often been mixed, and even confusing.

During the Cao Wei period, although the words used in all articles were gradually popularized and standardized, reading the works of the Han Dynasty during this period was already difficult to understand. Therefore, Cao Zhi once said, "The works of Yang and Ma are interesting and profound, and readers cannot analyze their words unless they are biography, and they cannot be synthesized if they are not erudite." The gist of it is that works like Yang Xiong and Sima Xiangru are faint in taste and profound in meaning, and it is often difficult for readers to understand comprehensively if they have not been taught by professional teachers, or if they are not knowledgeable. It can be seen that under the circumstances at that time, the level of people's reading ability was no longer simply a constraint of natural endowment, but was closely related to whether the text itself could be accurately recognized.

Since the Jin Dynasty, in the use of words, the pursuit of simple and easy-to-understand fashion. Since the style of writing respects conciseness and understanding, who wants to pursue the difficulty of words and words? Under this social climate, once a remote and weird font appears in the article, the whole article will immediately be regarded as an alternative, which will not only cause fuss and sighs, but also be condemned or repeatedly questioned. What's more, once there is a word that no one knows about the three people, it will immediately be regarded as a "word demon". In fact, some of the popular scripts of this period, even though they themselves were indeed difficult to read in terms of their phonetic meanings, were still regarded as easy to understand; However, at that time, as long as it was an infrequent script, even if it was easy to understand, it was regarded as remote and strange. It can be seen from this that tracing the changes of the times in the use of words in the article, the key to the development trend and basis of the so-called "difficult and easy trade-off" lies in the cultural atmosphere of a certain stage.

What is Erya? The legend was compiled by the disciples of Confucius and was used as an auxiliary reading material for studying the Book of Songs and the Book of Shang.

What is "Cangjie"? According to legend, it was edited by Li Si and is a material document that retains the strange font of the bird script.

"Erya" is a revelation of the origin of the text, and there are annotations on the phonetic meaning of the characters. Although Cangjie is like a garden for collecting strange characters, the origin and meaning of the glyphs can be more clearly confirmed through the comparison between different fonts. "Erya" and "Cangjie" together, like the right arm of the body, can complement each other. In the writing of articles, if you check and explore the phonetic meaning of the characters, you can also produce new phonological connotations, so as to compose a new chapter. In terms of exegesis and explanation, with the cultural changes of the times, the phonetic meanings of ancient and modern characters are also changing with each passing day, and they are even more varied between different articles. Between heaven and earth, the so-called cultural progress and civilization development, especially the history of literature and art, is that the inner emotions and external skills of human beings can not only be accurately expressed through different languages and tones, but also can be implemented in the text, so as to circulate and inherit.

From ancient times to the present, everything that can be chanted and sung beautifully and touching must lie in the harmony of syllables and rhythms; The beauty and beauty of the article must lie in the fullness and profundity of the semantics of the characters. Therefore, when writing articles, we must attach great importance to the selection and use of words, and usually need to pay attention to the following four aspects: "one avoids weirdness, two provinces connect borders, three weights come out, and four tones are single-toned." ”

The so-called "avoiding weirdness" is to taboo the use of grotesque and weird words. For example, Cao Ji of the Western Jin Dynasty once had such a poem: "Don't you want to travel, and you will be evil." Among them, the word "Yao" is quite abrupt, and even damages the beauty of the whole poem at once. In a situation like this, once it appears and exceeds two words, then the whole article is unsightly.

The so-called "provincial border" is to avoid the use of font arrangements on the same side. For example, when describing the scenery of mountains and rivers, it is inevitable to use words with "mountain" and "water" on the side, and if it is really unavoidable, use up to three in a row, and if there are more than three, it will definitely look sloppy, like arranging a dictionary.

The so-called "weighted out" is to weigh whether the same word needs to be repeated. The repeated use of exactly the same words has become commonplace in the "Book of Songs" and "Lisao", but in modern times, it has turned into a taboo. In fact, if it is necessary to repeat, even if it is taboo, it can still be used boldly. Modern poets and writers often write thousands of words, but they are often embarrassed by the choice of a certain word, not because they lack words, but because it is too difficult to avoid repetition completely.

The so-called "adjustment of single complex" is to adjust the arrangement of words according to the number of strokes. Under normal circumstances, if the strokes are always arranged together, they must look thin, like a weak wind; If there are many strokes always clustered together, it will be obviously bloated, like swollen and fat. Therefore, the author who is really good at weighing words and sentences must still care about the combination of sparse glyphs, and strive to pursue a kind of visual perfection like a string of beads.

As mentioned above, although not every article will encounter it, it is not necessary to be cautious. However, as a general rule of rhetoric in the article, it still needs to be understood and prepared for harmlessness.

From ancient times to the present, the anthology is vast, the sea of books is vast, especially the classics, in which the meaning of the characters is often bent. In addition, like the ancient silk books as cultural carriers, they were either eroded and peeled off, or scattered and missing, and even copied again and again, resulting in misrecognition and misreading, which is inevitable. For example, Meng Zhongzi, a disciple of Zisi, once pronounced "Yu Mu Buji" as "Yu Mu Buji" in "The Book of Songs, Zhou Song, Qing Temple's Shi and Weitian's Order", which is obviously a pronunciation error caused by the glyph. It is recorded in the "Lü's Spring and Autumn Period: Cha Biography" that the historical book has "Jin Shi Jihai Wading River", which is read by some people as "Jin Shi Sanfeng crossing the river", which obviously belongs to the word meaning error caused by the glyph. "The Great Biography of Shangshu" has "Don't Wind and Huaiyu", and "Imperial Century" is "Column Wind and Rain", like "Don't and Lie" and "Huai and Lewd" They are similar in shape, so the difference between before and after is obviously an illusion of recognition in reading. However, there are still similarities between "obscenity" and "column" in the literal meaning, and the confusion between "Huai" and "don't" must be almost bizarre in innovation. However, in the subsequent Eastern Han Dynasty, Fu Yi's "Beihai Wangyi", not only did the word "Huaiyu" appear, but also the word "farewell wind" appeared in Wang Rong's "Preface to the Qushui Poem on March 3rd" of the Southern Qi Dynasty. It can be seen that the literati were particularly fond of copying dictionaries, especially peculiar fashions, and this habit has not only been around for a long time, but also taken for granted. In fact, in the past, the sages and sages have always been particularly cautious about missing or questioning texts in the scriptures. For example, in the Analects of Wei Linggong, "I still have the history of Que Wenye" (to the effect that I am glad that I can still see the fragmented historical materials. and "The Analects of Politics" "Hear more and be suspicious, and be cautious about the rest, and then be few." (Something to the effect that if you listen more and be questioning and be careful with your words, you will make fewer mistakes.) This should be the right attitude and appropriate measure to deal with "Shi Quewen". Needless to say, only by being faithful to the true meaning of the shape and phonetic meaning of the characters, only by abandoning the blind use of dictionaries, and only by not arbitrarily being unconventional for the sake of fame and reputation, can we truly fit the purpose of the article "practicing words" and accurately conform to the real function of speech and rhetoric.

All in all: the font is subordinate to the late Qin seal, and "Erya" and "Cangjie" are in rudiment; The simple silk book is ambiguous, and the roots are clear. It is not a sin to be bent and resigned, and it is the real murderer to use it to advance and retreat; Huazhang leaps and turns, like a tiger with wings to practice words.