Reconsidering "luer (62)"

As a know-all of Hangzhou dialect always in my own conceit, I would've never called an intellectual who reads for nothing a "luer" (or simplified as 62), which, actually, IS the real origin of this slang word meaning bamboo bookcase, until I read some articles on dialect studies recently.

The earliest use of "luer" in the vernacular can be traced back to the Jin Dynasty when two higher officials had some personal attacks upon each other. One of them was called Liu Liu, who was said, a little bit exaggerating, to have read The Tao (by Lao Tse) as the only book in his reading life; while the other, Fu Di, who read a lot but understood little, sneered at Liu's arrogance (Liu was as high as Vice Premier) and mocked at his no-better-than-illiteracy. Liu, a hard nut as well, refuted, quite wittily, “You read a lot but gained nothing. Anything different from a hollow bookcase (shu luer)?”

With centuries of development and changes, the slang word luer is no longer meant for those who don't digest the knowledge they swallow. It's got, basically, two entries different from the original ancient usage. One is, so frequently mentioned that even non-natives of Hangzhou know this and try to avoid the two figures when selecting mobile/car plate numbers, the equivalent of "250" understood by most mandarin speakers or "yi ng zai" in Cantonese, meaning idiot. The other usage, perhaps lesser known and used, is applied when referring to some people of lower social status, e.g., laborers or those who have a miserable decline in career or life. The latter usage may come from "luo bo renr", which is not a bookcase at all. This may prove that there are various mergers and disintegrations of words during the process of language (or rather dialect) evolution.

Just a note to my fresh reading :-)