Jia Dao 贾岛 was a poet during the Tang dynasty. Once he was riding on a donkey when he was composing a poem. The third and fourth lines were, "Birds sleep on the tree near the pond. A monk was pushing at the door." "鸟宿池边树，僧推月下门。" He couldn't decide between the characters "push" (推) and "knock" (敲) for the second character of the fourth line.
Then, he met another poet, Han Yu 韩愈, by accident. (Some versions of the story have him thinking so hard about it that he rode his donkey right into Han Yu's house.) When Han found out what he was doing he told him that "knock" was a better word than "push", firstly because knocking is what a cultured monk would do, and secondly it brought an element of sound into the otherwise quiet scene described. Jia Dao agreed and the accepted version of the poem reads:
闲居少邻并，
草径入荒园。
鸟宿池边树，
僧敲月下门。
过桥分野色，
移石动云根。
暂去还来此，
幽期不负言。
Full English translation here
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