A few days ago, I came across the story of how Zeng Guofan replaced "lǚ zhàn lǚ bài" (fighting and losing every time) with "lǚ bài lǚ zhàn" (losing and fighting every time) and thereby won the emperor's praise. This got me thinking about what "weighing every word" really means to us.

      In terms of meaning, "lǚ zhàn lǚ bài" and "lǚ bài lǚ zhàn" are completely equivalent. If we bother to "weigh every word," it's easy to see the only difference is the order of "fight" and "lose." Now, looking at it from a literary perspective, the former gives a sense of rising to the challenge, while the latter suggests a lack of ability. Why do these two phrases evoke such different feelings? My personal view is that it comes down to our reading order and cognitive habits. Our way of understanding our mother tongue is "character → object or event → mapping to meaning." The character that appears first gets "mapped" to an image in the brain first, while the one that follows is "mapped" a beat later. This creates the difference in meaning. In this case, "lǚ zhàn lǚ bài" first maps the image of "fighting," and we then think of the outcome of fighting, which is "losing." In that chain of association and conclusion, the brain conjures up a scene of defeat, hence the feeling of "lack of ability." What about "lǚ bài lǚ zhàn"? It's the opposite: the character "lose" is mapped first, and where there is losing, there must have been a contest. Since the contest already had an outcome yet one still chooses to "fight," it gives a sense of rising to the challenge. If the two characters "fight" and "lose" were "mapped" in the brain simultaneously, then there would be no difference in feeling after swapping their order.

      Above, we discussed the different feelings produced by swapping the positions of two characters. Now, what about a single character?

In Guo Moruo's play Qu Yuan, Chanjuan scolds Song Yu: "You are a man without backbone!" When it was performed, Guo himself was listening from the audience and felt the line wasn't strong enough. He wanted to add "shameless" before "without backbone." An actor reminded him to change "are" to "this," making it "You, this man without backbone!"—and that hit the mark.

"Weighing Every Word" — Zhu Guangqian

      I've quoted Zhu Guangqian's essay to examine how this single-character substitution changes the feel. If we don't dig deep into "You are a man without backbone!" versus "You, this man without backbone!", we can barely see any difference. These two lines are, after all, essentially the same sentence—only one character is changed, and the meaning is identical. The difference between "are" and "this" is minuscule. But in physics, it is precisely these minuscule forces (take the Coulomb force, for example) that shape the course of the world. So we have no choice but to "weigh every word" once more.

      If someone asked you the difference between "are" and "this," what would you say? If you don't know, try forming a word or phrase with each. When I did this, the first things that came to mind were "whether" and "this one." The human brain operates on inertia—sometimes that's a bad thing, but sometimes we can put it to use.

      Let's look at the word "whether." It's made up of "are" and "not," and carries a sense of questioning. As for "this one," it directly refers to a specific thing or matter, and the word itself carries a piece of information: certainty. Given the context, Chanjuan is cursing someone, and the more certain the tone, the more it delivers the flavor that writers crave. Inertial thinking helps us unearth the meanings these words hold in our minds.

      Using the method above, we can see that in the script of Qu Yuan, the line "You, this man without backbone!" works better.

      This is the charm of "weighing every word"—as the saying goes: A miss is as good as a mile. "Weighing every word" can give a piece of writing a unique literary beauty.

      But we must understand: if we weigh every single word, what's the point? We can't spend our whole lives "weighing every word."

      I certainly admit that weighing every word is a good thing, but I also want to raise the point that we can't do it forever. To put it bluntly, "weighing every word" is exhausting. Just look at the examples of "lǚ zhàn lǚ bài" versus "lǚ bài lǚ zhàn" and "are" versus "this": repeatedly scrutinizing these takes a great deal of energy and time. What's more, weighing words requires a basis for the scrutiny. If the scrutiny is groundless or purely associative, it makes the text very hard for readers to follow.

Take Su Dongpo's poem "Boiling Small Dragon Tea at Huishan": the third and fourth lines read, "Alone I bring the little moon from the sky, / To taste the second spring beneath the world." The "little moon from the sky" is an association triggered by the "Small Dragon" tea. If you don't know this connection, the original lines are simply incomprehensible.

"Weighing Every Word" — Zhu Guangqian

      Zhu Guangqian's view on Su Dongpo's poem is exactly my view. If we strain ourselves weighing every word in our writing, the piece will turn into something like Kong Yiji from Lu Xun's story—a character who peppers every sentence with archaic particles like "zhi hu zhe ye," making it baffling to readers. Therefore, straining to "weigh every word" in an article is not advisable. Of course, we shouldn't conclude that Su Dongpo's poem is inferior either. For a poem by Su Dongpo, readers are indeed expected to dig deep. But that applies only to literary masters; for ordinary people, doing so is gilding the lily.

      In everyday life, the primary function of language is communication. If we "weigh every word," it will greatly hinder communication. For ourselves, weighing words takes time; without time, the scrutiny is mostly groundless or associative. For others, the purpose of communication is to convey meaning, not to show off literary flair or elegance. Although "weighing every word" is itself a way of expressing ideas, if it's based on association, it becomes hard to grasp; and if it's based on factual evidence, most people won't notice the carefully chosen word anyway. Only when we put words down on paper do we have the time and the mindset to think deeply—though this shouldn't contradict what I wrote in the previous paragraph.

      Let's return to the matter of "weighing every word" in writing. Even if we don't strain ourselves and only scrutinize a few individual characters, what do we actually gain? Unless someone reads an article deeply and analyzes it carefully, how many people will even care about the words you've weighed?

      This is why "weighing every word" is so tiring: it's a laborious task that doesn't necessarily pay off.

      So, is "weighing every word" good or not?

      This is actually a question without an answer. We can't say we should never "weigh every word," because it can benefit people, but we also can't deny it. I say "weighing every word" doesn't always bring benefits, but that doesn't mean it has none. To reap its benefits, our writing must follow an "unwritten rule": not too much, not too little. Weigh words when the time is right; when it isn't, doing so may backfire. "Weighing every word" is itself a delicate balance, much like a game of chess. If one side is too strong or too weak, the game holds nothing to look forward to, and you can't experience the joy of the contest. Only when both sides are evenly matched, achieving a delicate balance, does the game become enjoyable. Literature is the same: you gain something and lose something. Teachers always tell us to be detailed where details matter and brief where brevity is due. This isn't just a skill for exam essays—it's something to do in all writing. When one element is overdone, to restore balance, another element or several others must be...