Ruò

Pinyin: ruò, rě.

Interpretation: a common standardized Chinese character (commonly used). The character was first used in Shang dynasty oracle bone inscriptions and Shang dynasty gold inscriptions, and its ancient form resembles a person raising his hand to smooth his hair, so its original meaning is "顺". The original meaning of the character is "顺". The later Chinese character "若" is often borrowed as "像、如", and from "如", the meaning can be derived as "及、达到". The meaning of "如" can be extended to "及、达到". The word "若" can also be used as a second person pronoun, equivalent to "you, your". It can also be used as a hypothetical conjunction, equivalent to "if" in modern Chinese.

If was first used as a pictograph. The shape of the oracle bone character (Figure 1) resembles a woman combing her hair, with the three vertical lines in the center of the upper part of the character indicating long hair, and the left and right hands raised close to the hair, indicating that the hair is being combed smoothly. The curved lines below indicate a seated body. The upper part of the character in Jinwen (Fig. 2) is the same as that in Oracle, while the lower part of the character is in the form of a half-stand; in some cases, a "mouth" is added to the lower left part of the character (Fig. 3), which turns it into an acrostic character. Not only does the character straighten the hair, but the mouth is also used to emphasize the meaning of conformity. In the Qin seal script, there is a big change in the shape of the character, with the upper part of the character representing the two hands and the hair becoming the cursive head and "又", and the lower part of the character "口"(Figure 6). It probably means to organize and smooth the weeds with hands, and the character shape still wants to express the meaning of smoothness. The Han Li glyphs (Figs. 7 and 8) were further changed from the Qin seal script, and became the character "若" (艸) or "艹" (艸) at the top and "右" (若) at the bottom. The character "艸" or "艹" on the top and "右" on the bottom. Judging from the shape of the oracle bone inscriptions, the initial meaning of "若" refers to a woman combing her hair, probably to express the meaning of conformity. Shang Chengzuo "Yin virtual text class editing": "Divination Zhu Ruoxiang people raise their hands and feet, is like Nuo is XunShun shape, the ancient Nuo and if for a word, so Ruoxiang training for the Shun. Ancient Jinwen Ruo character is slightly the same as this."

"If" is obedient, derived from the meaning of promise, promise, that is, "No". To "obey or comply" is to act in accordance with existing rules, so similar to the word "如", it can be derived to mean "as if, as if", such as For example, the word "大智若愚" or "大巧若拙", in which the word "若" is understood as "如" or "好像" (as if, as if). Similarly, like "如", in this sense, it can also be derived to mean "及, 到, 比得上", for example, in the Analects of Confucius - Xue而 (学而), "It is not as if one is poor but happy, rich but well mannered. " The word "若" here is used as "比得上"