Datang: The prince of salted fish was overheard by Li Er

Early this morning, Kong Yingda was dealing with matters in the Imperial College as usual.

Suddenly a commotion outside the door caught his attention.

When he walked out of the study, he heard several bachelors arguing outside the door.

"I think these symbols are specially added by Shence Mansion to distinguish them from the books of the aristocratic family. They have no special meaning."

"How is it possible? You can see that the tone of this sentence is obviously different from this sentence, so the symbols behind it are also different!"

"There are also here and here. Look at it, it seems to have a special meaning."

"..."

Kong Yingda listened for a long time, but still didn't understand what they were talking about, so he could only walk up to him and ask.

"What are you talking about?"

When they saw Kong Yingda, they were shocked and quickly hid the book behind their backs.

"What book, take it out!"

Kong Yingda became even more curious when he found that they were collecting books.

The bachelor had no choice but to hand the book behind his back to Kong Yingda tremblingly.

"Kong Jijiu, we are discussing these strange symbols in this novel."

"We found these symbols in the books printed by Shence Mansion, so we started discussing them."

Kong Yingda took the book, and his face turned dark immediately.

The book these two people read turned out to be "Changle Fairy Tales Collection" compiled by Princess Changle.

"How old are you, and you still read these children's books!"

Facing Kong Yingda's questioning, the bachelor finally mustered up the courage to answer.

"Kong Jijiu, you don't know that this book is selling like crazy in Chang'an."

"People with children are basically a must-have!"

"Now my child refuses to sleep unless I tell him the above story at night!"

Hearing this, Kong Yingda laughed.

"Your words are a bit exaggerated. You have read the book, and the storytelling is naturally vivid."

"Then can other families in Chang'an City teach books like you?"

"This book is probably only bought by you scholars."

In Kong Yingda's view, although the books compiled by Princess Changle must be easy to understand, there are still too few scholars in this era.

Many people can only be said to be literate at best, and it is not easy to arouse the desire of ordinary people to buy books.

But this time, the two bachelors in front of them shook their heads at the same time.

"Kong Jijiu, you are really wrong this time. Anyone who is a little bit literate will buy this book."

"Also, they seem to be able to read the meaning of it very easily."

This time, Kong Yingda was really shocked.

He also briefly read this book once. Princess Changle's writing is not completely vernacular, and it takes a certain amount of skill to fully understand it.

Kong Yingda thought it was not surprising that he could read easily, but it was a bit puzzled that someone with a little literacy could understand him.

But the two scholars in front of him spoke so convincingly that Kong Yingda couldn't help but not believe it.

Confused, Kong Yingda asked again: "What were you two discussing just now?"

Now that a lot has been said, the bachelor took out the book again and said, "Look at Kong Jijiu, these books from the Shence Mansion all have dots and tick marks on them."

"We don't know what these things are, but we feel that reading has become a lot easier with the help of these things!"

Kong Yingda picked up the book and read it again. Sure enough, after paying attention to these symbols, reading became easier.

His intuition told him that this must be another pioneering work by Li You.

The key to making books understandable to those who can only read must lie in these symbols.

Kong Yingda's heart warmed up, so she brought the book to Chu Palace.

Seeing Li You, Kong Yingda immediately took out the book, pointed to the symbols on it and asked, "King Chu, what are these?"

When Li You saw Kong Yingda pointing up with a book, he was startled. He thought that some book revealed the secrets of history, and his first reaction was to pretend to be confused.

"Kong Jijiu, what are you talking about? I don't know the contents of these books, they made them!"

Kong Yingda knew that she was too anxious just now, and explained: "King Chu, I'm not talking about the content, I'm asking about these symbols. What are these circles and curved dots?"

"So you asked about punctuation marks, I'm scared to death!"

Li You breathed a sigh of relief, put on a smiling face and said.

"It turns out that these are called punctuation marks. I don't know how they are used?"

Li You's words made Kong Yingda understand that these things are indeed useful, not because of the printing technique.

Li You picked up the book, pointed to the punctuation marks on it, and said, "These punctuation marks are actually most useful for punctuating sentences."

"Kong Jijiu also knows that there are no sentences in the books of the sages, so when we are reading, we need to rely on the teacher to explain how to sentence sentences to restore the author's original intention."

"And sometimes, the same sentence but different sentences may completely change the meaning."

"It is precisely because of this that there are so many people who study the scriptures, and there are so many different interpretations."

"For the convenience of readers, I just use punctuation marks to break sentences."

"In this way, no matter who reads it, there will be no misunderstanding!"

Kong Yingda suddenly realized: "No wonder, the books from Shence Mansion are easier to read."

"The King of Chu doesn't know that there has been a wave of reading craze in Chang'an City recently. Anyone who can read will buy books to read."

"The king of Chu can be said to have done a great deed to benefit the literary world!"

Then Kong Yingda began to humbly ask for advice on the role of various punctuation marks.

Li You didn't hide his secrets, and began to explain one by one.

"Punctuation marks can be divided into two categories: marks and dots."

"Among them, period, question mark, exclamation mark, comma, comma, semicolon and colon are dots, and the function of dots is to break, mainly indicating the pause and tone of speech."

"And other symbols such as quotation marks, brackets, dashes, ellipsis, book titles, etc. are labels, and their function is to indicate, mainly indicating the nature and function of the sentence."

"..."

Then Li You compared the book and explained all the most common punctuation marks.

Although it was just a few simple punctuation marks, Kong Yingda was fascinated by hearing them, and kept nodding.

Speaking of which, punctuation marks are not unfamiliar to Kong Yingda either.

Although in ancient Chinese documents, punctuation marks are generally not added, but sentences are broken through language sense, mood particles, grammatical structures, etc., but in fact China has had punctuation marks since the pre-Qin period.

Kong Yingda has read a lot of ancient books, and has come into contact with some similar symbols.

It's just that there is no uniform standard for these symbols, and often a person has a pattern, which is neither systematic nor reasonable, and sometimes different symbols can cause controversy.

But Li You's set of punctuation marks is completely different.

Although each symbol has a specific usage and does not contradict each other, it perfectly covers every need in the article.

Of course, what shocked Kong Yingda even more is that no matter how obscure the article is, the difficulty will be greatly reduced after adding punctuation marks.

"No wonder, the books from Shence Mansion are selling so well!"

Suddenly a thought flashed in Kong Yingda's mind, making his expression even more excited.