{"id":70226,"date":"2025-07-29T18:31:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T23:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=70226"},"modified":"2025-07-29T18:31:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T23:31:40","slug":"double-cao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=70226","title":{"rendered":"Double Cao"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/~bgzimmer\/caocao.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Click to embiggen\" src=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/~bgzimmer\/caocao.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" \/><\/a><\/p>\r\n<p>On first blush, I thought perhaps the person pictured had a double chin, and by cropping the photo this way they were trying to hide it.\u00a0 On second blush, it was clear that they had misinterpreted the name of the famous 2nd c. statesman, general, and poet, Cao Cao\u00a0<span lang=\"zh\">\u66f9\u64cd<\/span>\u00a0(ca. 155-220 AD).<\/p>\r\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\r\n<p>The line of verse on the T-shirt is the first from Cao Cao's famous 16-line poem, \"Du\u01ceng\u0113\u00a0x\u00edng\u300a\u77ed\u6b4c\u884c\u300b\" (\"Short Song Ballad\"), written in the year 207 AD:\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">du\u00ec ji\u01d4 d\u0101ng g\u0113, r\u00e9nsh\u0113ng\u00a0j\u01d0h\u00e9?<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u5c0d\u9152\u7576\u6b4c\uff0c\u4eba\u751f\u5e7e\u4f55\uff1f<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\"Facing the brew, let us sing; how long does one's life last?\"<\/p>\r\n<p>For the complete poem in Chinese and English, see\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Poetry_of_Cao_Cao\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Poetry_of_Cao_Cao&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1753899870405000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3OpKAqIV6rYZORjvLgS6xY\">this Wikipedia article<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<p><b>Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>\"<a title=\"Permanent link to Preserved wife plum\" href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=33627\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"bookmark noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p%3D33627&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1753899870405000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1fWVwv-NH0TEP_9xPrVfDn\">Preserved wife plum<\/a>\" (7\/12\/17)<\/li>\r\n<li>\"<a title=\"Permanent link to Plum &gt; apricot and wine &gt; brew:  the language of poetry and painting\" href=\"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=33680\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"bookmark noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p%3D33680&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1753899870405000&amp;usg=AOvVaw34kWgG0JO64G72zx-tLcQ2\">Plum &gt; apricot and wine &gt; brew: the language of poetry and painting<\/a>\" (7\/14\/17<\/li>\r\n<li>\"T<a title=\"Permanent link to Two brews\" href=\"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=2100\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"bookmark noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p%3D2100&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1753899870405000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2-lQGzHzJ7S9nNyFbxtJWc\">wo brews<\/a>\" (26\/10)<\/li>\r\n<li>\"<a title=\"Permanent link to Brew\" href=\"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=52791\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"bookmark noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p%3D52791&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1753899870405000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3a3JpodnnEV3EaJpnKxmC0\">Brew<\/a>\" (11\/25\/21)<\/li>\r\n<li>\"<a title=\"Permanent link to Let the Beer-Divider Be Chief!\" href=\"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=1636\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"bookmark noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p%3D1636&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1753899870405000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1roaYKtIKMSEtCEM2byDS1\">Let the Beer-Divider Be Chief!<\/a>\" (9\/5\/09)<\/li>\r\n<li>\"<a title=\"Permanent link to English \" href=\"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=27234\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"bookmark noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p%3D27234&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1753899870405000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0RqoJbjUOy5WmQ-quLsQZj\">English 'wine', French 'vin', Spanish 'vino'<\/a>\" (8\/6\/16)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>[Thanks to Diana Shuheng Zhang]<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On first blush, I thought perhaps the person pictured had a double chin, and by cropping the photo this way they were trying to hide it.\u00a0 On second blush, it was clear that they had misinterpreted the name of the famous 2nd c. statesman, general, and poet, Cao Cao\u00a0\u66f9\u64cd\u00a0(ca. 155-220 AD).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,16,205],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-and-food","category-language-and-politics","category-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70226"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70232,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70226\/revisions\/70232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}