Illiterate; unable to read or write a single word; not knowing even the most basic characters.
Era:
Ancient
Frequency:
Story:
During the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Hongjing, the military governor of Youzhou, had subordinates named Wei Yong and Zhang Zonghou. They often drank together.
At that time, the world was peaceful, and there were no battles at the border, so these generals had little to do.
They sighed, saying, 'Now that the world is peaceful, practicing martial arts is not as good as practicing literature. Being able to pull a two-stone bow is not as good as knowing a single character.'
The idiom eventually evolved from '个' (ge), which is visually similar to '丁' (ding), into '目不识丁' to describe someone who is illiterate and cannot recognize even the simplest character.