Textual Research on the Two Pool Entries of Ancient City in The Great Chinese Dictionary
Although the term"Xuecheng"is interpreted in The Great Chinese Dictionary as"an accessory structure of ancient city walls",its specific reference and the meaning behind its naming are worth exploring."Xuecheng"actually refers to"Wengcheng",which in turn is a corruption of"Yongcheng".Due to the homophony between"Yong",meaning"boot tube",and"Yongcheng",as well as the similarity or homophony between"Weng"and"Weng"with"Wengcheng",and the elliptical shape of the"boot tube"being similar to the semi-circular shapes of"Yongcheng"and"Wengcheng",people mistook the sound for the character and replaced"Yong"and"Weng"with the everyday item"boot",thus calling"Yongcheng"and"Wengcheng"as"Xuecheng".The term"Guidie"is interpreted in The Great Chinese Dictionary as"referring to a sturdy city wall",but in fact,it refers to Chengdu.The legend of Zhang Yi building a city in the shape of a turtle in Search for the Divine gave Chengdu the alias"Turtle-shaped City",which can also be abbreviated to"Guicheng".By replacing the character"city"in"Guicheng"with a synonym"die"it becomes"Guidie".The intrinsic requirement of elegant diction in poetry and odes also makes literary scholars more inclined to choose some unfamiliar words in their creation,and thus the term"Guidie"came into being.
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