There is a sentence in Du Fu's "Stone Trench Official": "The old man walks over the wall, and the old woman goes out to see." If you understand "walking" as walking, you would be very wrong. So, what does "walking" mean if it is not walking? This has to start with its original glyphs and meanings.
The glyph evolution of the word "go"
The "walk" oracle bone glyph resembles a person swinging his arms and striding away. The golden glyph adds a foot under it, and some glyphs also add "彳" to the meaning of walking, road, etc.
The original meaning of "go" was equivalent to the current meaning of "run". Liu Xi of the Han Dynasty, "Shi Ming Shi Zi Rong": "Xu Xing knows steps, rushes to know the trend, and rushes to go." It can be seen that from the perspective of the speed of travel, "step", "trend" and "walk" are faster than one another: "step" is to walk slowly; "trend" is to walk fast; "rush" is to "walk", is to run.
The meaning of "walking" means to run was commonly used in ancient times. "Xunzi Yao Asks": "A gentleman's strength is like an ox, and he does not contend with the cow; he walks like a horse, and does not fight with a horse." This means that a gentleman is as powerful as an ox, but he does not compare the strength of a cow; a gentleman runs as fast as a horse, but does not race with a horse. "Han Feizi Wuyin": "Rabbits walk around touching plants, folding their necks and dying." "It means that the rabbit hit the tree stump while running, broke its neck and died. "The Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Overseas Northern Classic": "Father Quao's and the Sun's exodus." "Eviction" means race. In addition, the words "birds and beasts" and "walking horses and flowers" that we still use today actually retain the original meaning of "walking".
"Walking" sometimes refers specifically to "fleeing.". "Mencius Liang Hui Wang Shang": "Abandon the armor and drag the soldiers and go." This means that the soldier who lost the battle threw away his armor and fled with his weapon in tow. The "old man walking over the wall" mentioned at the beginning of this article is the meaning of the old man escaping over the wall.
"Walking" develops the meaning of "running and tending" on the basis of "running". For example, "Mencius Li Lou Shang": "The people's return to Renye, the water of Judah is down, and the beast's walk is also." "The common people turn to benevolence, just as water flows down and wild beasts run into the wilderness. Another example is "Huainanzi Says Lin Xun": "The fisherman walks the abyss, and the wooden one goes to the mountain." "The fishing people run to the water's edge, and the loggers run to the mountains.
[Ming] Xie Shichen's "Map of the Return of Wind and Rain to the Village" (partial)
Because running, running, etc. all have the meaning of moving, leaving the same place, etc., "walking" later developed many meanings and usages such as "leaving", "moving objects", "passing", "deviating from the original", "traveling between relatives and friends", and euphemistically indicating human death. I will not repeat them here.
"Walking" means that the meaning of "walking, walking" and other meanings that appeared later is now commonly used. According to research, after the Tang Dynasty, the meaning of running was mainly borne by "running", and the main meaning of "walking" gradually changed from "running" to "walking".
It is worth noting that in the ancient text, "walking" has some special uses. For example, Zhang Heng's "Xijing Fu" of the Eastern Han Dynasty: "There is no escape on the top, and there is no one left behind." "Walk" here refers to beasts. The gist of the whole sentence is that there are no birds in the sky that have slipped through the net, and there are no beasts on the earth that have leaked. Another example is "Mozi Bei Moth Fu": "Take the car twice, and the axle is vast." "Go" here refers to the wheel. The gist of the sentence is that it is equipped with two wheels to make the distance between the two axles larger. Careful analysis, it is not difficult to find that "walking" means beast or wheel, which is developed from the meaning of its meaning of running and moving.
The first sentence of Sima Qian's "Book of Reporting to Shaoqing" reads: "Taishi Bull Ma went to Sima Qian to pray again. "Cow and horse walk" originally meant to run forward and run like a cow and horse and serve the master's servants, and then it was also a general reference to those who drove the run, which was used as a self-effacing term in ancient times.
Later, a single word for "go" could also be used as a courtesy word, equivalent to calling oneself a "servant." In the Eastern Han Dynasty Zhang Heng's "Tokyo Fu", "although I am not sensitive", it means that although I am not alert enough. The same use is also used in the Northern Song Dynasty Fan Zhongyan's "Letter to the Duke of Han and Wei", "The responsibility of western affairs, in the public and walking".
"Go" is also used as a head of ministry. The words containing "walking" are mostly related to walking in meaning, such as "going, tending, rising, and over" that indicate walking actions, and "toe, toe" that indicates the state of walking.
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