About: Goblet word

Zhīyán (卮言, literally "goblet words") is an ancient Chinese rhetorical device, supposedly named in analogy with a type of zhi wine vessel that tilts over when full and rights itself when empty. The Daoist classic Zhuangzi first recorded this term for a mystical linguistic ideology, which is generally interpreted to mean fluid language that maintains its equilibrium through shifting meanings and viewpoints, thus enabling one to spontaneously go along with all sides of an argument.