carve on gunwale of a moving boat(kè zhōu qiú jiàn)

carve on gunwale of a moving boat

Carving a boat for a sword is an idiom evolved from a fable, which comes from the spring and Autumn Annals of the Lu family. Generally speaking, it refers to a person who sticks to dogma, sticks to the law, and is stubborn and inflexible. In a sentence, it is often used as predicate, attribute or adverbial, with derogatory meaning.

The origin of Idioms

There are people in Chu who wade the river. Their swords fall into the water from their boats. They suddenly agree with their boats and say, "this is where my swords fall from." When the boat stops, it will be asked to enter the water from what it has contracted. The boat has already gone, but the sword can't. isn't it perplexing to ask for the sword? In the Warring States period, Lu Buwei wrote Lu's spring and Autumn Annals. Chajin. There was a man crossing a river in the state of Chu. His sword fell into the water from the boat. He immediately marked the boat and said, "this is where my sword fell." When the boat arrived at its destination, the Chu man jumped into the water from the place where he had made the mark to look for the sword. The boat has already sailed, but the sword hasn't moved. Isn't it stupid to look for the sword like this?

Idiom story

During the Warring States period, there was a man in the state of Chu who crossed the river by boat. When the boat arrived in the middle of the river, the Chu people accidentally slipped a sword into the river. He quickly reached for it, but it was too late. The sword had already fallen into the river. The people on board were very sorry for that. But the Chu man seemed to have a plan. He immediately took out a knife and engraved a mark on the side of the boat, and said to everyone, "this is the place where the sword fell into the water, so I want to engrave a mark." people don't understand why he did it and don't ask him any more. after the boat landed, the Chu man immediately went into the water where the mark was engraved on the boat to retrieve the fallen sword. After fishing for a long time, Chu people never saw the shadow of the sword. He felt very strange and said to himself, "isn't that where my sword fell? I've also carved a mark here. How can I not find it now? " When he said this, all the people laughed and said, "the boat has been moving, but your sword has sunk into the bottom of the water and won't move with the boat. How can you find your sword?"

The meaning of Idioms

It's common sense that a sword will sink when it falls into the water. When the boat went far away, it was ridiculous to look for the sword that had fallen into the water under the boat. If the boat is still and the sword sinks to the bottom of the water, a mark will be engraved on the place where the sword falls. If you follow the mark, you can find the sword in the water. But the sword sank to the bottom and did not move, but the boat kept moving. This objective fact is not reflected in the mind of those who seek sword. He thought with all his heart that wherever the sword fell, he would look for it and find it. His understanding is inconsistent with the objective facts, and the result is failure. It's very powerful to use such a metaphor to satirize people who cling to dogma. There are two reasons in this idiom. On the one hand, if people's ideological understanding does not conform to the objective reality, they will not succeed. On the other hand, the objective reality is constantly changing. If we take the old rules as a magic weapon to solve new problems, we should make jokes. The author's thought is simple, materialistic and dialectical.

Use of Idioms

Written usage is derogatory. I don't know how to deal with things with the change of objective situation. Generally used as predicate, attribute and adverbial. Su Shi's laments of Wang Zhongfu in the Northern Song Dynasty: "I can laugh at Dongpo's stupidity, but I still remember the marks of boat carving." In Qing Dynasty, Yang Kanggong made Gaoli play the song of Qilihai temple in Banqiao: "Gonghu is a boxing, which is a cloud in the sky. If you write a poem praising its beauty, it's like carving sword marks. " Huang Tingjian of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote in his "reminiscence of the Xijiang incident when berthing boats" that "in the past, boats were carved for falling swords, and people were weeping with dead hairpins." In Yuan Ji Yi's "the sky of the partridge, the food filled with the painted cake will be empty", it is said that "the food filled with the painted cake will be empty, but there is absolutely no way to carve a boat for a sword." The 120th chapter of Cao Xueqin's a dream of Red Mansions in the Qing Dynasty: "if you want to get to the bottom like this, you have to carve boats for swords and columns for drums."

Cognate idioms

To carve sword marks, to carve boat marks, to seek sword marks, to carve boat marks and to record sword marks

Chinese PinYin : kè zhōu qiú jiàn