Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 94 Punctuation

Because Baoding Mansion is in Hebei, it is thousands of miles away from Yingtian Mansion.

In other words, this person was either recommended by someone to study here, or he learned that Jinling Academy was recruiting students on his way to the south, so he boldly entered Jinling Academy to continue studying.

No matter what the situation is, in today's era, a person from Baoding Prefecture can appear in Jinling Academy of Yingtian Prefecture, which has successfully made the current Crown Prince remember his name.

Wang Ji is about 1.9 meters tall, and his body is extremely strong. He looks very tall when he stands up.

He bowed and clasped his fists, looked around the crowd and saluted: "During the Warring States Period, Mozi's master recorded the image of a small hole in the "Mo Jing", saying: 'Scenery, the person with the light is as warm as a shot. The person below is also high, and the person above is high. The people are also coming down. It is enough to show the light, so the scenery is hidden.'"

"This phenomenon is the principle of small hole imaging. It can be seen that light propagates along a straight line, and the bronze mirror image is formed by the reflection of light."

Having said this, Wang Ji looked around at everyone, bowed his head and said, "Students, I have a humble opinion. Let's give it a try."

Then, he bowed to Zhu Gaoxu again and knelt down at the table again.

After Wang Ji sat down, Zhu Gaoxu said loudly: "Is there any student who would like to give me a lesson?"

After waiting for a while, when no one answered, he continued: "History is created by people. The ancient times were created by the ancients, and the present world is created by the modern people. The ancient sages and sages can create classics (referring to the Four Books and Five Classics) and invent Why can’t today’s people create classics and invent new things like compasses and seismographs? I hope you can seriously think about this issue.”

"Why do you want to study? Is it to get promoted and make a fortune? To honor your ancestors? Or to cultivate your moral integrity, govern your family, govern the country, and bring peace to the world? Or as Mr. Hengqu said, 'To establish a heart for the world, to establish a destiny for the people, to carry on the unique knowledge of the saints. To create peace for all eternity'?"

"So, I hope you can think carefully about this sentence, why are you studying?"

Listening to Zhu Gaoxu's eloquent remarks, Fang Xiaoru, Mei Yin, Xie Jin, and Ouyang Lun were all surprised. They seemed to have seen Zhu Gaoxu's ambition.

"Next, is the third meeting gift I give you."

Zhu Gaoxu turned around and wrote a sentence vertically on the blackboard - If it rains, you will be a guest and if it rains, I won't stay.

"Look, how many ways can this sentence be broken up?"

Zhu Gaoxu pointed at the sentence on the blackboard and asked loudly.

While the students were deep in thought, two Confucian masters, Fang Xiaoru and Mei Yin, were also trying to segment sentences. Even Jie Jin and Ouyang Lun, who were Jinshi scholars, could not help but figure out how to segment sentences.

For a time, there was a lot of discussion in the main hall.

Some say two, some say three, and some say five.

In ancient Chinese documents, punctuation marks are generally not added, but sentences are broken up through language sense, modal particles, grammatical structures, etc.

For example, add the symbol ":" to the article to indicate the completion of the sentence, add the symbol ";" to indicate the current pause of the sentence, and use ")" to indicate the pause of the tone.

Therefore, ambiguities often appear in documents, leading to misunderstandings of the words of the article.

In spoken language, the pause before or after a sentence or in the middle is expressed as a time interval.

But in written language, punctuation must be used, otherwise ambiguity will occur.

To borrow an official statement from later generations, punctuation marks are an integral part of written language and an indispensable auxiliary tool for written language. It can help people accurately express their thoughts and feelings and understand written language.China has had punctuation marks since the pre-Qin era, but there is no unified standard for these symbols.

"History of Song Dynasty: Biography of He Ji" praised He Ji: "Everything I read is punctuated. The meaning is self-evident, and the meaning is self-evident without being discussed."

In fact, as far back as the era of oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions, a rather peculiar punctuation mark has sprouted in China.

Xu Shen of the Han Dynasty included punctuation marks in "Shuowen Jiezi". The symbols "," were interpreted as meaning to stop and recognize, and the symbols "()" were interpreted as hook recognition.

In other words, ancient China just did not have modern punctuation marks, not that there were no punctuation marks.

Zhu Gaoxu waited for a full quarter of an hour before extending his hand to signal everyone to be quiet.

After the scene calmed down, he said: "There are many ways to break up the sentence 'On rainy days, you can stay with me on days'. This shows how important punctuation marks are when writing or reading. If punctuation marks are not used appropriately, it will be very serious. It is prone to ambiguity.”

"Every scholar knows about this problem, but how to solve it?"

"Some people think that this is a problem for the creator. The original author only needs to punctuate this sentence at the beginning of creation to avoid ambiguity."

"However, some people argue that the punctuation mark added by the original author may only know its meaning, and it is difficult for others to understand its original meaning, so there will still be ambiguity. Therefore, a conventional punctuation mark should be added."

"Now, I want to leave this major event that shocked the world of scholars to you to complete."

Zhu Gaoxu said this in one breath, and the scene became so silent that you could hear a pin drop.

The students had already guessed Zhu Gaoxu's plan. They were all excited, breathing rapidly, and wanted to take action immediately.

"You will discuss and select various types of punctuation marks on site. Dr. Fang and Dr. Mei and I will select commonly used punctuation marks and report them to the court on a day to request approval of these commonly used punctuation marks as universal punctuation marks for court official documents and promulgate them. Traveling all over the world."

In other words, all scholars in the Ming Dynasty will select the common punctuation marks that will be used in the future by these students from Jinling Academy!
"We will obey His Royal Highness the Prince's instructions!"

A group of students worshiped and shouted excitedly.

The five professors were affected, and their faces turned red with excitement, because they were happy for the students, excited that they were about to witness history, and even more fortunate to be professors at Jinling Academy.

Two hours later.

Zhu Gaoxu, Fang Xiaoru, and Mei Yin looked at the dozens of punctuation marks collected and continued to discuss for a full hour.

Finally, they identified seventeen types of punctuation marks and divided them into two categories: dots and marks.

Among them, dots represent pauses of different lengths in spoken language, and labels represent the nature or function of words in written language.

Periods include periods, question marks, exclamation marks, commas, commas, semicolons, and colons. Marks include quotation marks, brackets, dashes, ellipses, emphasis marks, book title marks, spacers, hyphens, proper names, and separators.

Zhu Gaoxu wanted to use the bomb of punctuation marks to give the scholars in the scholarly community of the Ming Dynasty a heavy blow, and let those traditional scholars see the power of the new generation of students.

He believed that after this incident, Jinling Academy would become famous among scholars.

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(End of this chapter)