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>위록지마(謂鹿止馬) wii rok ji ma To point at a deer and call it a horse. Used for suck ups who says agrees to things that are clearly not right. Adding a little bit o
by NalNezumi 4y ago
>위록지마(謂鹿止馬) wii rok ji ma
To point at a deer and call it a horse. Used for suck ups who says agrees to things that are clearly not right.
Adding a little bit of context to this: This seems to be the same origin as the Japanese word baka: 馬鹿 which means stupid and is the combination of the word Horse(馬) and deer (鹿). It has a quite funny background story[1] from ancient China:
>Zhao Gao was contemplating treason but was afraid the other officials would not heed his commands, so he decided to test them first. He brought a deer and presented it to the Second Emperor but called it a horse. The Second Emperor laughed and said, "Is the chancellor perhaps mistaken, calling a deer a horse?" Then the emperor questioned those around him. Some remained silent, while some, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Zhao Gao, said it was a horse, and others said it was a deer. Zhao Gao secretly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law. Thereafter the officials were all terrified of Zhao Gao.
The English wiki is a bit kind to him, because in the original one it wasn't "put before the law" but killed/executed. So the "fool/stupid" person is not the one that called a deer a horse, but the ones that didn't
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baka_(Japanese_word) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baka_(Japanese_word)