The word "talented" is used to describe being knowledgeable. So how can knowledge be measured with a bucket? What is the origin of this word?
This allusion comes from Xie Lingyun, a scholar of the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty.
He is a famous landscape poetry writer in ancient my country. He was politically frustrated, so he devoted his love to landscapes and wrote a large number of landscape poems. He was as famous as Yan Yanzhi, another literati at that time who was the most prolific in writing, and was called "the best in Jiangdong".
Most of his poems describe the scenic spots in Huiji, Yongjia, Lushan and other places. He is good at depicting natural scenery and created a school of landscape poetry in the history of literature. The poems he wrote are very artistic, paying special attention to the beauty of form, and are very popular among literati. As soon as the poem came out, people rushed to copy it and it spread widely.
Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty appreciated his literary talent very much and recalled him to Kyoto to serve. He called his poetry and calligraphy the "two treasures" and often asked him to write poems and compositions while serving banquets. Xie Lingyun was an arrogant man who relied on his talent and pride. He once sighed to himself while drinking: "There is only one stone in the world (a unit of capacity, one stone is equal to ten buckets). Cao Zijian (that is, Cao Zhi) only got eight buckets. I got one bucket. Since ancient times, "Today we will have a fight." This means that the talents of all people in the world are not in his eyes, and only Cao Zhiwen is outstanding, which can make him sincerely impressed.
As a result, later generations will call those with outstanding talents and learning as "Eight Dou Talents" or "Eight Dou Talents". For example, Li Shangyin of the Tang Dynasty wrote "Sigh": "Concubine Mi is sitting in Zhitian Pavilion in sorrow, exhausting the talents of Chen Wangba." Tang Xujiu's "Xian Neihan Yang Shilang" contains: "If you want to talk about the warmth of summer, you will keep silent. Fu Gong Ci "Eight Dou Cai" and so on.
In order to praise a person for being knowledgeable, people nowadays often use these two words together, saying that this person is very talented. Of course, this is also a tribute to others, not a word to describe yourself!