To swallow the jujube whole

To swallow the jujube whole: a common expression that means to act without reflection.

I read a short little book called "Ancient Fables of China". It can be a bit dense and boring, they aren't the kind of fables I was used to reading. Rather, they seem more crude as well as ancient—crude in the sense of being unsophisticated or popular. They are collections of fables that spread among the common people, which is perhaps why they aren't as polished or finished with a neat moral at the end.

Someone published the full book online on this site: http://www.um.es/tonosdigital/znum10/secciones/tri-fabulas.htm

I saved a few fables that were my favorites, along with a couple of phrases and sayings I liked. For example, the one I used to open this post, which says:

"To swallow the jujube whole": a common expression that means to act without reflection.
(Ancient Fables of China, p. 81)

I didn't know what a jujube was, let alone the saying. In fact, it barely appears anywhere on the internet. It was probably a popular saying back then that gradually faded away over time.
So, what is a jujube? According to the RAE (Royal Spanish Academy):

jujube (azufaifa). (From Hispanic Arabic azzufáyzafa, from Aramaic zūzfā, and this from Greek ζίζυφον).

1.    f. The fruit of the jujube tree. It is an ellipsoidal drupe, a little over a centimeter long, red on the outside and yellow on the inside, sweet and edible. It used to be used as a chest remedy.

And in the two following links, there is a bit more information about this plant and its fruit: http://www.natureduca.com/med_espec_azufaifa.php and http://articulos.infojardin.com/Frutales/fichas/azufaifos-azufaifas-jinjolero-azofaifo-azofeifa-ziziphus-jujuba.htm

Another excerpt I wanted to rescue, mostly because of the final phrase serving as a moral—since, if I remember correctly, it was the only one in the entire book—was the following:
From this story (1) comes the ancient proverb that still circulates today: "Persevering work can turn an iron bar into an embroidery needle."

1 – Ancient Fables of China, "Turning an Iron Bar into a Needle", pp. 101-102.

And to finish this post about the book I read, just a few words that caught my attention: two because I didn't know them, and one because I knew what it was but had forgotten about it. In addition to the "jujube" and a bird, the "woodcock", "cuttlefish" was added to my unfamiliar vocabulary.

Let's see:

woodcock (becada). (From Celto-Latin beccus, beak).

1.    f. A wading bird about the size of a partridge, with a long, straight, thin beak, a compressed head, and reddish-brown plumage with black spots on top and lightly striped lighter shades underneath. It prefers dark terrain, feeds on caterpillars and earthworms, and its meat is edible.

cuttlefish (jibia). (From Latin sepĭa, and this from Greek σηπία).

1.    f. A dibranchiate, decapod cephalopod mollusk with an oval body and a fin on each side. Of its ten tentacles, the two longest have suckers at the tip, while the other eight have them along their entire length. On its back, covered by skin, it has a soft, light calcareous shell. It reaches about 30 cm in length, is abundant in temperate seas, and is edible.

2.    f. Cuttlebone (the internal shell of the cuttlefish).

 

You always learn something new. :)

(originally published on 12/16/2007)