Beyond Due Measure – The Abhorrence for “Excessive Wording”

 

 

Ulrike Middendorf

 

 

Abstract

Pre-Qin writers demanded correctness and aptitude in wording when deliberately composing utterances for ritual, ceremonial, aesthetic, or persuasive purpose. It was regarded the writer’s and disputer’s task to observe orderly formulation, and to refrain from using crafty and misleading words. The warnings of a Kong Zi, Mo Zi, Meng Zi, and others to be cautious of and to guard against “excessive wording” (yin ci) implied a vehement criticism of the sophists’ practice, who were blamed to steal away the people’s souls with deluding words, and, in extension, to bring disorder and ruin to ruler and state by flattery.

This paper explores the concept of “excessive wording,” emerging in Warring States ‘language crisis’ debates, and its later development. It shows that verbal formulation, exceeding due measure and transgressing the borders of propriety and good taste, were considered inept for conveying a true view of reality, and thus could not be tolerated. Deeply rooted in early theories of sense perception, the term “excessive wording” was associated with the aural and visual attraction of words, contrived by cunning intelligence. First used to refer to verbal deception and specious reasoning, it later meant, too, “excessively beautified and untrustworthy wordings,” strongly connected with the idea of sensual and sexual indulgence. We argue that the negative ring of both characterizations was the result of a policy of language control and language purification. Based on a moral philosophy that found fault with (moral) relativism, new in the classical world, regulations for ‘performative utterance’ were established, while, at the same time, pompous writers and rhetors were censured for giving rein to what was judged decadent. In post-Han usage the phrase “excessive wording” became a ubiquitous label of over-ornamented wording, heterodoxy and dissent, in which the ruling elite’s rejection of unusual expression of thought crystallized.