How does bragging come from?

"Bragging" is a common saying in China. In the present sense, it means "to talk big and brag". So, where did this proverb and its usage come from?

According to expert research, the word "bragging" originated in the upper reaches of the Yellow River in China. When the Yellow River flows through Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi and other provinces (regions), the current is fast, the beach is dangerous and the waves are bad, and navigation is difficult. In ancient times, when bridge traffic was underdeveloped, people living in the upper reaches of the Yellow River came up with a solution to the problem of crossing the river: using rafts instead of boats. Before 1950s, kayaking was always an important means of transportation for people living in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, where the railway had not been opened and the road traffic was inconvenient.

The practice of the raft is roughly as follows: when slaughtering, the whole fur of sheep or cattle is peeled off as much as possible, then the whole fur is depilated with salt water, then the limbs and neck are coated with vegetable oil, soaked in water and exposed to the sun to make it soft, then sewn into the bag with a string, leaving only a small hole, which is sealed after blowing enough air, and then several leather bags are tied together with wooden boards, and the raft is made. In ancient times, people didn't have a pump or an air pump, so there was only one way to inflate a raft-blowing it with your mouth. The sheepskin bag is small in size and can be blown directly with the mouth. But even sheepskin bags can only be blown up by people with very strong physique and large lung capacity. The cowhide bag is too big to be blown directly with your mouth. Therefore, in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, if someone says that he can blow cowhide bags, it will be considered as bragging; When residents there are impatient to brag to others, they often say to them, "Go to the Yellow River to brag if you have the ability!" " Over time, "boasting" gradually became synonymous with "boasting" and gradually spread.

Bragging: from the butcher. In the past (and now), after killing pigs and sheep, the butcher would cut a small mouth on the leg of pigs and sheep near the hoof, put an iron bar in it and poke it, then put his mouth together and blow hard into it until the pigs and sheep were swollen. This will be very convenient when peeling, and the skin will crack by itself with a slight pull with a knife. It's called blowing pigs or blowing sheep. It's bragging that you deal with cattle like this.

But when slaughtering cattle, butchers rarely use this method, because cattle are huge, with tough skin and little subcutaneous fat. To blow up the whole cow, it is very human to have an extremely strong diaphragm and a huge lung capacity. Anyone who says he can brag is 99.9999 percent "bragging"!

"Bragging" is also called "bragging", but people who don't know its origin will call it "bragging B" or "cow B" in order to further strengthen its derogatory meaning; Because this last word is often replaced by "X" in writing, some people now call "bragging" "awesome".

When people "brag", they often look aggressive. On this basis, people describe prosperous people and things as "real cows" (greatness). The "bull" in the stock market "bull market" and "bear market" does not come from this. When the stock market rises, the trend curve will rise upwards, shaped like the outline of a bull with its head held high; When falling, the curve bends downward, similar to the drooping back of a bear's bow.

However, although the origin of "cow" and "real cow" in "bull market" is different, they are the same in terms of "prosperous wealth".