「書」的本義可以是書寫或文字或文辭，僅對文字形體本身進行分析無法得出正確結論，必須結合文字的記詞職能進行考察確定。「蒼頡之初作書」之「書」指「文字」，包括依類象形之「文」和形聲相益之「字」。「書，箸也」和「箸於竹帛謂之書」均為聲訓，「箸」可以解為附著、書寫或箸明，三義同源而相通，「附著」是語源義，「書寫」是語境義。「箸於竹帛謂之書」旨在說明文字的附著方式，「書」是「書寫」義。「書者，如也」聲訓旨在說明文字的取象方式——如其物狀，「書」指文字。這兩條聲訓聲源不同，取譬有別。先秦時期只是說把文字附著在竹帛上面才稱之為「書」（書寫），並沒有說書於竹帛的才叫「書」（書籍）。

Summary: The original meaning of “writing” can be interpreted as characters or diction, but it can not come to an correct conclusion only by analyzing these characters from themselves, we must combined them with their function of recording the vocabularies in order to investigate and determine. The “writing” in “at the beginning of Cang Jie inventing the writing” refers to the “characters”, including the “pictogram” and the “phonogram”. Both the sentences “Writing, which is mean by noting” and “Noting on the bamboo slip and silk is called writing” are exegesis by pronunciation. The “noting” can be interpreted as annotate, write or illustrate, they are interlinked meaning as paronyms, “annotate” belongs to the etymological meaning, while “write” belongs to the contextual meaning. “Noting on the bamboo slip and silk is called writing” is meant to explain the annotating method of characters, “writing” means “write” at here. The sentence “Writing, which is mean by noting as it should be” is also exegesis by pronunciation, meant to explain the imaging method of characters—as themselves, “writing” means “characters” at here. These two sentences are according to different original pronunciation and analogy. In the pre-Qin dynasty, there was a saying that it could not be called “writing” (writing) except attaching characters to the bamboo slip and silk, but nothing about that it could not be called “writing” (books) except writing on the bamboo slip and silk.