Related, but not causal. "Butcher" originally meant "cook", and Japan originally called kitchen knives "butcher's knife", then save the word "knife". Bao Ding (ほうちょう)

庖丁解牛，是大家都熟悉的一个中国古代成语，庖丁，是古代的厨师，非常熟悉牛的结构和经脉，杀牛熟练，游刃刃，这个成语现代比喻经过反复实践，掌握了事物的客观规律，做事得心应手，运用自如。 This fable story is from "Zhuang Zi - The Inner Chapters - The Lord of Nurturing Life". Pre-Qin - Zhuang Zhou "Zhuang Zi - Nourishing Life Lord": "Butcher for the gentleman Wen Hui to unravel the cattle, the hands of the touch, the shoulders of the leaning, the feet of the shoes, the knees of the shin,? Like the sound of a sword being directed toward a man, and the sound of a knife being played, nothing is out of tune."

It shows that things in the world are complicated, as long as the repeated practice, mastered its objective laws, will be able to get used to it, use it freely, and get rid of it. Write the cow slaughter action of beautiful, skillful; success after the complacency, etc., colorful, as heard as seen, fascinating. The language is vivid and graphic, "the eye without the whole cow", "ease", "complacent", "to the point" "Butchering the cow" idiom, that is, from this article.

This Chinese idiom has long been spread to Japan, the Yamato nation of people to the kitchen kitchen knife extension, until today, the Japanese language, "Bao Ding (simplified from the Chinese characters for Butcher)" is to cut the meaning of the knife. Japanese-style cutting knife called "and Bao Ding (and the meaning of the style Bao Ding)", Westerners use called "foreign Bao Ding", China's cutting knife is called "Chinese Bao Ding", so in Japan do not say that Japan! The knife, because the Japanese knife (short for knife, katana) is another meaning, specifically refers to the Japanese weapons knife

Author: Kim Wan

Source: Zhihu

Copyright ? 2012 by the author.