First, let’s talk a little bit about the word “barnyard”. According to my experience and impression of being bold and contemptuous of people, the character "barnyard" can easily be read as the character "bei", "spleen", "pi", or even any character with a similar shape to the original character.In fact, the Mandarin pronunciation of this character is like "负". According to Xu Shen's simple explanation, this word is recorded in the thirteenth volume (part seven) of "Shuowen" as "hebieye", which means that it belongs to the grass class but is different from the grains that are commonly known by ordinary people.

Du Yu came across this word when he was annotating "Zuo Zhuan". His explanation is as follows: "Barnyard grass is like grain. Barnyard grass has rice, which is like grain and can be eaten, so it is also planted." It seems that barnyard millet is a rice grain that cannot be put on the table.No wonder Mencius would say: "If you are not familiar with it, it is worse than weed barnyards." In vernacular, it means: "The rice grains do not grow well, but they are not as good as those weeds that look like rice grains." Because the weeds are sown well, the harvest is good. You can also feed livestock, so in Ban Gu's "Hanshu Yiwenzhi", there is: "Novels are called barnyards." , second-class, short of a cut.

If what foreigners call “barnyard grass”—the scientific name is Echinochloa crusgalli—can be translated into barnyard grass, this grass family has flat stems, about three feet high, slender and pointed leaves, parallel veins, and can grow Plants with panicles of small flowers and flat spikes are also crops; some occur on moist cultivated land, and some can also grow on wasteland.But foreigners don't use this thing as a metaphor, and it has nothing to do with Western novels or small businessmen. A metaphor is such a thing: the reason why the purpose of the metaphor and the metaphor can explain each other is because the person who uses the metaphor has already made a presumption: people who read this metaphor will never object or understand that the person who uses the metaphor has a relationship with the symbol. He Yuzhi's evaluation attitude.For example: A (the person who uses the metaphor) said to B: "C is like a pig." It means that A has already known that B is the same as A to pigs (whether it is ugly or stupid) , lazy, dirty) have no good impressions, and use this (pig) to seek the same with a certain C.Generally speaking—even if biologists and zoologists have repeatedly declared the superiority of pigs as a domestic animal or pet, the metaphor of pigs in this world must include (like A, and also like A) The hypothetical certain B) has double derogatory meanings for the purpose (some C) and metaphor (pig) of the other.However, among the two kinds of derogatory meanings that can be interpreted mutually, the derogatory meaning of metaphors "before the occurrence time of meaning". Assume that a person B first has a derogatory meaning for the metaphor (pig).

When the metaphor "barnyard" is used to explain novels, the person who uses the metaphor (Ban Gu) has already assumed that the readers of his work ("Hanshu") have already agreed that "novels" are inferior and second-class , Something short of it.Therefore, in the note of "Yiwenzhi": "For example, Chun said: 'Fine rice is barnyardgrass, and the streets talk about it. The king wants to know the customs of Luxiang, so he set up a barnyard official and called it.'" By Xu Hao "Shuowen Jiezi Notes" even wrote: "The barnyard official is not the meaning of fine rice. The wild history novel is different from the official history, just like the wild barnyard barnyard, which is different from the grass, so it is called the barnyard official." Because it is small, I am afraid it is not regarded as a thing.

Half of my life's work (and my visible life's work) have been novels, and if people don't take it as a thing, I can't bear to argue. However, if the character for barnyardgrass is not interpreted as "little" or "bie", but purely based on its botanical attributes, if the novel is like barnyardgrass, I will be full of admiration.Because it is wild and free, it can grow on wet mud and gravel; if people eat it and it is not easy to digest, it is their own limitation.