| 单词 | 俚语 |
| 释义 | 〔naff〕In the dual tradition of looking to one's betters for models of how to use language and American obeisance to British usage,let us look at two British words spellednaff. One is an adjective,meaning "clichéd, unstylish" (first recorded in 1969),that may be derived from dialectal wordssuch asnaffhead, "simpleton,” or niffy-naffy, "stupid.” The othernaff is a verb, usually used in the imperative in combination withoff (first recorded in 1959). This is the delicate injunction that members of the royal family such as Princess Anne have used in requesting members of the press to beat it.The origin ofnaff is unknown, but it has been suggested thatnaff may be related to an older English slang term naf, meaning "the female sexual organ.” Naf has been derived from a backward spelling offan, from fanny. 在看待如何使用语言的模式和美语遵从于英语那个更好的两个传统上，让我们看两个拼写为naff 的美语单词。 一个是形容词，表示“过时的，老调的”（首次记录于1969年），可能源于方言单词，如naffhead “傻子”或 niffy-naffy “愚蠢的”。 另一个naff 是动词， 通常用于命令语气与off 连用（首次记录于1959年）。 这是王室家族成员如安娜公主在要求报刊成员禁用时所使用的微妙禁令。Naff 不知源自何处， 但它表明naff 有与旧英语俚语 naf 相关的迹象表示“女性生殖器官”。 Naf 源于从fanny 而来的逆序拼写形式 fan 〔raspberry〕rhyming slang for fart fart的押韵俚语〔posh〕"Oh yes, Mater, we had a posh time of it down there.”So inPunch for September 25, 1918, do we find the first recorded instance of that mysterious wordposh, meaning "smart and fashionable,”although in a 1903 book by P.G. Wodehouse,Tales of St. Austin's, there is a mention of a waistcoat that was "push.” The latter may be a different word,but in either case the dates of occurrence are importantbecause they are part of the objection to derivingposh from the initials of "Port Out, Starboard Home.” This was the cooler, and thus more expensive, side of ships traveling between England and India in the mid-19th century,and the acronymPOSH was supposedly stamped on the tickets of first-class passengers traveling on that side of ships owned by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. No evidence is definitely known to exist for this theory, however.TheOxford English Dictionary Supplement may have found a possible source or sources for posh. Another wordposh was 19th- and early 20th-century British slang for "money,” specifically "a halfpenny, cash of small value.”This word is borrowed from the common Romany wordpåšh, "half,” which was used in combinations such aspåšhera, "halfpenny.” Posh, also meaning "a dandy,” is recorded in two dictionaries of slang published in 1890 and 1902,although this particularposh may be still another word. This word or these words, however, are much more likely to be the source ofposh than "Port Out, Starboard Home,” although the latter source certainly has caught the public's etymological fancy.“哦是的，妈妈，我们在那里过着豪华的生活。”因此在1918年9月25日的punch 上， 我们看到了那个神秘单词posh 的首次记录， 意为“豪华的，时髦的，”虽然早在1903年P·G·伍德豪斯的名为圣·奥斯汀传说 的作品中就提及了意为"push"的马夹这个词。 后者也可能是另外一个不同的词，但在任何一种情况下两者被使用的时间都很重要，因为它们都反对posh 这个词源于"Port Out，Starboard Home。” 这是意指19世纪中期往来于英格兰及印度的船只中较凉爽、因而票价也就较为昂贵的一侧，而POSH 这个首字缩拼词据说就印在半岛——东方蒸汽船航运公司所拥有的船只上较为凉爽的一侧头等舱的票上。 然而对于这一说法并没有确凿的证据来加以证明。牛津英语词典增补本 也许为 posh 找到了一个或多个可能的词源。 另一个词posh 则是19世纪和20世纪初英国人用来表示“钱”的俚语， 尤指“半便士，小面值钱币。”这个词源于吉卜赛常用词på歨 ，意为“一半”， 用在诸如意为“半便士”的复合词på歨era 中。 Posh 也有“花花公子”之意， 这一用法记录于1890年及1902年出版的两本俚语词典中，尽管这个特有的posh 也有可能是另一个词。 然而这个词及上文提到的那些词比"Port Out，Starboard Home"更有可能是posh 这个词的词源， 虽然后者早被人们确认为这个词的词源〔joke〕It is hard to imagine the English language without the wordjoke , butjoke is only first recorded in 1670. Sincejoke was originally considered a slang or informal usage, it was not suitable to all contexts.The change in status ofjoke from then to now provides us with an excellent example of how usage changes. Joke has a decent enough heritage at any rate, coming from Latiniocus, "jest, sport, laughingstock, trifle.”Iocus in turn can be traced back to the Indo-European root yek-, meaning "to speak,” from which also comes the Umbrian wordiuka, "prayers,” and the Welsh wordiaith, "speech.” 我们很难想象英语中如果没有joke 这个词会怎样， 但是joke 在1670年才首次有文字记载。 因为joke 起初被认为是俚语或非正式用语， 以前它并不是在所有的文章中都适用的。从那时到现在joke 地位上的变化给我们提供了一个关于语言用法如何变化的极好的例子。 不管怎样joke 的词源算得上很体面， 它来自于拉丁语中iocus 一词， 表示“玩笑，游戏，笑柄，琐事”。Iocus 反过来又可追溯到印欧语系中的词根 yek- 表示“说话”， 从这个词根还派生出翁布里亚语中iuka 一词，即“祈祷”， 以及威尔士语中iaith 一词，即“讲话，演说” 〔Ade〕American humorist whose newspaper columns, plays, and books, such asFables in Slang (1899), reflect the humor and common sense of ordinary people. 艾德，乔治：(1866-1944) 美国幽默作家，其报纸专栏，戏剧以及书籍，例如《俚语寓言故事》 （1899年），反映了普通人的幽默感及见识 〔interrobang〕bang 1[exclamation point (printers' slang)] bang1[感叹号（印刷工人俚语）] 〔snob〕Snobs look down at their inferiors,but at one timesnobs looked up at their betters.The wordsnob, the ultimate origins of which are uncertain, is first found in 1781in the sense "shoemaker, cobbler,”a regional and informal usage.The word is recorded around 1796in a slang usage particular to Cambridge University, "a townsman as opposed to a gownsman.”Both senses may have fed into the sense first found in 1831, "a member of the ordinary or lower classes.”Along with this sense went another (1838), "a person without proper breeding or taste.”From these two senses arose the sense first recorded in 1848, "a person who looks up to his or her social betters and tries to copy or associate with them.”We can see how this sense could blend into the other familiar sense,"one who looks down on those considered inferior" (1911).势利小人们都瞧不起不如他们的人，但有一段时间，势利小人只是羡慕地位比他们高的人。Snob 这个词最远的起源还不清楚， 它第一次出现于1781年，意为“鞋匠，补鞋人”，这只是一种方言和非正式用法。1796年左右的记录显示，这个词有一个专用于剑桥大学的俚语意思，“与贵族相对应的普通市民”。这两个意思都进入了它第一次出现于1831年的“普通或低下阶层中的一员”这个意思。这个意思与另一个意思平行(1838年）：“没有良好教养和品味的人”。从这两个意思发展来了“羡慕地位高于他（她）的人并尽量与之进行联系的人”这个意思，第一次记录于1848年。然后，我们就能发现怎样又从这个意思中派生出了其它我们熟悉的意思，即“瞧不起被认为地位比自己低者的人”(1911年）〔local〕a local custom; the local slang.当地风俗；当地俚语〔jumbo〕probably from slang [clumsy person] 可能源自 俚语 [笨拙的人] 〔umpteen〕Slang ump(ty) [dash in Morse code] [of imitative origin] 俚语 ump(ty) [莫尔斯电码的长划] [拟声词] 〔bushed〕Possibly from Australian slang [lost in the bush] 可能源自 澳大利亚俚语 [不知所措] 〔shakedown〕In 1969 a majority of the members of theAmerican Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel felt that the noun shakedown in the sense "extortion" and the related phrasal verb shake down were acceptable in writing, though both are now labeledslang. It would seem that certain usages take a while to attain respectability because of the company they keep.Shake and the verb phrase shake out of already meant "to steal" in Middle English. This usage ofshake is still found in the 19th and 20th centuries. Bothshake and shake out of in the sense "to steal" are clearly related to shake down, which is first recorded in 1872, shake down being glossed "to extort money from individuals.” This is a slang usage,probably occurring, as had the verbshake, largely in contexts having to do with criminal or corrupt behavior. As our Panel realized,the verb and the later nounshakedown (first recorded in 1902 in the United States) have now moved from the lingo of criminals, loan sharks, and politicians into wider currency. 1969年，大多数美国经典辞书 用法研究小组的成员认为名词 shakedown （意为“敲诈”）及相关的短语动词 shake down 在写作中是可接受的， 虽然现在两者均被标以俚语。 与之有关的意义似乎有些用法需要一些时间来获得社会的承认。在中世纪英语中，Shake 和 shake out of 已经意味着“偷盗” 。 shake 的这种用法仍见于19世纪和20世纪。 Shake 及 shake out of （意为“偷盗”）明显与 shake down （首次记载于1872年）有所联系。 shake down 被解释为“从个人处敲诈金钱”。 这是俚语用法，很可能如动词shake 一样，大量用于与犯罪或腐败行为有关的语境中。 正如我们的用法研究小组所意识到的，该动词及后来的名词shakedown （在美国最早记载于1902年）已从罪犯、高利贷者及政客的语汇发展到更广泛的使用领域 〔dogsbody〕British slang [naval rations (obsolete), midshipman] 英语俚语 [海军口粮（古用）；低级军官，海军军官候补生] 〔copacetic〕We know very little about the origin of the wordcopacetic, meaning "excellent, first-rate.” Is its origin to be found in Italian, in the speech of southern Black people, in the Creole French dialect of Louisiana, or in Hebrew?John O'Hara, who used the word inAppointment in Samarra, later wrote thatcopacetic was "a Harlem and gangster corruption of an Italian word.” O'Hara went on to say, "I don't know how to spell the Italian,but it's something like copacetti.” His uncertainty about how to spell the Italian is paralleled by uncertainty about how to spellcopacetic itself. Copacetic has been recorded with the spellings copasetic, copasetty, copesetic, copisettic, and kopasettee. The spelling is now more or less fixed, however, ascopacetic or copasetic, even though the origin of the word has not been determined.The Harlem connection mentioned by O'Hara would seem more likely than the Italian,sincecopacetic was used by Black jazz musicians and is said to have been Southern slang in the late 19th century. Ifcopacetic is Creole French in origin, it would also have a Southern homeland.According to this explanation,copacetic came from the Creole French word coupersètique, which meant "able to be coped with,” "able to cope with anything and everything,” "in good form,”and also "having a healthy appetite or passion for life or love.”Those who support the Hebrew or Yiddish origin ofcopacetic do not necessarily deny the Southern connections of the word. One explanation has it that Jewish storekeepers used the Hebrew phrasekol bĕṣedeq, "all with justice,”when asked if things were O.K. Black children who were in the store as customers or employees heard this phrase ascopacetic. No explanation of the origin ofcopacetic, including the ones discussed here, has won the approval of scholars, as is clearly shown by the etymology ofcopacetic in the first volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, published in 1985: "Etym unknown.” 我们对copacetic 这个词的词源所知甚少，其意为“极好的、一流的”。 它是起源于意大利语、南方黑人口语、路易斯安那州的克里奥耳人的法语方言还是希伯来语？约翰·奥哈拉在撒马拉的约会 中用到这个词， 他后来写到copacetic 是“变成哈莱姆黑人居住区和强盗土语的意大利词”。 奥哈拉还说，“我不知道原来的意大利词是如何拼写的，但是有点象copacetti"。与他不敢肯定如何拼写这个意大利词一样，他对copacetic 一词本身的拼法也不敢肯定。 Copacetic 曾经被拼写成 copasetic, copasetty, copesetic, copisettic 以及 kopasettee。 现在它的拼法多少已经固定成copacetic 或 copasetic， 尽管这个词的词源仍未被确定。奥哈拉所提及的它与哈莱姆黑人居住区的关系看上去比它和意大利语的关系更有可能，因为黑人爵士歌手曾用过copacetic 这个词，并且据说在19世纪晚期它曾是南方的俚语。 如果copacetic 在词源上是克里奥耳人的法语， 那么它也是从南方来的。根据这一解释，copacetic 来自克里奥耳人法语中 coupersetique 一词， 表示“有能力与人竞争的”、“有能力处理任何事情及一切事情的”、“以好的方式的”，还表示“对生活或爱情有正常的欲望或激情的”。那些认为copacetic 来自希伯来语或意第绪语的人并不一定否认这个词与南方的关系。 一种解释认为，犹太店主们在被询问是否一切都好时用了希伯来语中的短语kol bĕṣedeq 即“一切太平”之意， 在店里作工或买东西的黑人儿童将这个短语听成了copacetic。 在关于copacetic 词源的解释中，包括以上讨论的这些，没有一种得到学者们的认可， 这一点我们可以在美国方言英语辞典 （1985年出版）第一册关于 copacetic 一词的词源解释中清楚地看到：“词源不知” 〔purity〕The absence in speech or writing of slang or other elements deemed inappropriate to good style.纯粹：在语言或文字上不存在俚语或其他不适合于高尚风格的其他因素〔hopefully〕And though this use ofhopefully may have been a vogue word when it first gained currency 30 years ago, it has long since lost any taint of jargon or pretentiousness for the general reader.The well-attested acceptance of the usage reflects an implicit popular recognition of its usefulness;there is no precise substitute.Someone who saysHopefully, the treaty will be ratified makes a hopeful prediction about the fate of the treaty,whereas someone who saysI hope (or We hope or It is hoped ) the treaty will be ratified expresses a bald statement about what is desired. Only the latter could be continued with a clause such asbut it isn't likely. · It might have been expected, then, that the initial flurry of objections tohopefully would have subsided once the usage became well established. Instead, increased currency of the usage appears only to have made the critics more adamant.In the 1969 Usage Panel survey the usage was acceptable to 44 percent of the Panel;in the most recent survey it was acceptable to only 27 percent.(By contrast, 60 percent accepted the analogous use ofmercifully in the sentence Mercifully, the game ended before the opponents could add another touchdown to the lopsided score. ) Yet the Panel has not shown any signs of becoming generally more conservative:in the very same survey panelists were disposed to accept once-vilified usagessuch as the employment ofcontact and host as verbs. · It seems that this use ofhopefully has been made a litmus test, which distinguishes writers who take an active interest in questions of grammar or usage from the great mass of people who keep their own linguistic counsel.No one can be blamed who useshopefully in blithe ignorance of the critics' disdain for it, since the rule could not be derived from any general concern for clarity or precision.But writers who are aware of the critical controversy face a more delicate decision.Some will simply flout the rule,seeing no reason that they should be deprived of a useful construction.Others may choose to avoid the usage,whether they are motivated by discretion or civility. ·Like other sentence adverbs such asbluntly and happily, hopefully may occasionally be ambiguous. In the sentenceHopefully, the company has launched a new venture, the word hopefully might be construed as describing the point of view of either the speaker or the subject. Such ambiguities can be resolved either by repositioning the adverb (as inThe company has launched the new venture hopefully ) or by choosing a paraphrase ( One may hope that the company has launched the new venture ). 尽管hopefully 的这一用法在30年前首次通用的时候曾是个时兴词， 但对于广大读者来说它早已失去了俚语或矫饰的色彩。屡经证实的对这一用法的接受反映了对其实用性的普遍默认；而且并不存在其他精确的代用词。有人如果说但愿条约能被批准 ， 便是对条约的命运作了充满希望的预测，反之如果有人说我希望 （或 我们希望 或 希望 ) 条约将会被批准 则表达了对其期望之物的大胆声明。 只有后者可以接从句象但这不大可能 。 也许我们本可以期待当这一用法已变得根深蒂固之后， 对hopefully 的一片反对声可稍事平息。 然而，这一用法的流行似乎反而使批评家们更为坚定。在1969年用法调查使用小组的调查中44%的成员接受这一用法；在最近一次的调查中却只有27%的成员接受。（相比之下，60%的人接受mercifully 在句子 幸好，在对手能够给这一边倒的比分再加上一分之前，比赛就结束了 中的类似用法） 但是并没有任何迹象表明调查小组成员正在普遍变得更保守：在同一次调查中小组成员们倾向于接受被一度废除的某些用法，如把contact 和 host 用作动词看来。 似乎hopefully 的用法已经成了一块试金石， 它把对语法和用法怀有浓厚兴趣的作家和保留着他们自己的语言学顾问的广大民众区分开来。那些全然忽视批评家们的蔑视使用hopefully 的人不该受到指责， 因为规则并不来源于任何对清晰和精确的关注。但是意识到了批评界争议的作者们面对着一个更为微妙的决定。有些人干脆违反规则，他们认为没有理由要失去这么一个实用的结构。另外一些人则选择避免这一用法，无论其动机是出于谨慎还是出于礼貌。象许多其它句中副词如bluntly 和 happily一样，hopefully 经常出现歧义。 在下句 Hopefully, the company has launched a new venture 中， hopefully 一词可以解释为记述说话者的观点或者句中主语的观点。 这种歧义可以通过调换副词位置（如公司已经满怀希望地到办了一个新企业 )或选择另一种说法( 有人希望这个公司已经创办了一个新企业 )来消除 〔nerd〕The wordnerd and a nerd, undefined but illustrated, first appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss'sIf I Ran the Zoo : "And then, just to show them,I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo a Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!” (The nerd itself is a small humanoid creature looking comically angry,like a thin, cross Chester A. Arthur.)Nerd next appears, with a gloss, in the February 10, 1957, issue of the Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday Mail in a regular column entitled "ABC for SQUARES": "Nerd—a square, any explanation needed?”Many of the terms defined in this "ABC" are unmistakable Americanisms,such ashep, ick, and jazzy, as is the gloss "square,” the current meaning ofnerd. The third appearance ofnerd in print is back in the United States in 1970 in Current Slang : “Nurd [sic], someone with objectionable habits or traits. . . . An uninteresting person, a ‘dud.’” Authorities disagree on whether the two nerds—Dr. Seuss's small creature and the teenage slang term in theGlasgow Sunday Mail —are the same word. Some experts claim there is no semantic connectionand the identity of the words is fortuitous.Others maintain that Dr. Seuss is the true originator ofnerd and that the wordnerd ("comically unpleasant creature") was picked up by the five- and six-year-olds of 1950 and passed on to their older siblings, who by 1957, as teenagers,had restricted and specified the meaning to the most comically obnoxious creature of their own class,a "square.”单词nerd 和 a nerd，无定义但有说明， 第一次出现于1950年瑟斯博士写的要是我管动物园 中： “然后，仅仅是为了给他们看，我将航行到Ka-Troo，并带回It-Kutch a Preep和a Proo a Nerkle a Nerd ，还有一件印度泡泡纱！”（蠢货本身是一个具有人类特点的小动物，一副好笑发怒的样子，像瘦小很生气的切斯特·A阿瑟）。Nerd 接着在1957年2月10日苏格兰格拉斯哥人一期杂志上再次出现，还有一个解释。 星期日邮报 在一常设栏目中出了题为“古板之人ABC"的文章： "Nerd——古板之人，还需要任何解释吗?”许多在这个"ABC"中定义的术语是明显的美国特有词，如hep,ick 和 jazzy ， 正如nerd 的现行意思“古板之人”一样， nerd 第三次出现于印刷品中又回到了1970年美国的 最新俚语 中： “Nurd ［原文如此］带有令人不快的习惯或品质的人…一个没趣的人，一个‘饭桶。’” 权威们对这两个蠢货--瑟斯博士所指的小动物和格拉斯奇星期日邮报 上的青少年俚语是否是同一个词持不同意见。 有些专家宣称此处无语义联系，两个词的相似属偶然。其他人则坚持瑟斯博士是nerd 一词的始创者， 且nerd 一词（意为“令人不快的滑稽小动物”）让1950年时五、六岁的孩子们学会并传给了比他们大些的兄姐。 到1957年，作为青少年，他们把意思限定和专指他们当中最滑稽讨厌的家伙，即“古板守旧”的人〔slanguage〕the slanguage of the street; a glossary of Chicago slanguage.这条街上特有的俚语；芝加哥特有俚语汇编〔flapper〕Sense 2 British Slang [very young female prostitute, flapper] 释义2 英语俚语 [年轻妓女，放荡的少妇] 〔trashed〕Expressions for intoxication are among those that best showcase the creativity of slang. The boundless inventiveness in expressing the ordinary in not-so-ordinary ways led Walt Whitman to describe slang as"an attempt of common humanity to escape from bald literalism, and express itself illimitably.” Colloquial and slang expressions meaning "intoxicated" can fill several pages in slang thesauruses. Most fall into a few general groups. Common are expressions that originally meant "damaged, badly affected by something,” such as trashed, smashed, crocked, blitzed, hammered, wasted, messed up, and blasted. Cooking terms are also common, such as baked, fried, and boiled (said to have been coined at Princeton University in the 1920s). Terms relating to liquids or being filled are a natural source of metaphors for filling oneself up with drink or drugs: sloshed, oiled, tanked, and loaded are but a few. Some terms are not easily classified or have origins that are not fully clear, such as tight (first appearing in the 1830s), plastered (first appearing around 1912), blotto (perhaps from blot, first appearing in 1917), and stoned (apparently taken from such expressions as stone-drunk, stone-cold, and first appearing as stone in 1945). Most current terms for "intoxicated" are not very old, as one expects of slang terms generally; of those in the lists above, blotto, crocked, fried, loaded, plastered, tanked, tight, and oiled are recorded in the first half of the 20th century, and of these only tight and oiled are known to have existed before then. 表示喝醉的词语充分体现了俚语的创造性。用非同寻常的方式创造极为寻常的俚语，其间蕴藏了无限创造空间，华尔特·惠特曼将俚语描述为“让平常心从文字束缚中逃离，并随性表达出来” 。表示“喝醉的，酒醉的”的口语以及俚语的表达方式，可以填满俚语同义词的数页空间。大多数俚语可归入几个分类。许多常见俚语的原意为“被破坏的，受某物负面影响”，如 trashed、smashed、crocked、blitzed、hammered、wasted、messed up 以及 blasted 。烹饪词汇也很普遍，如 baked、fried 和 boiled （据说由普林斯顿大学于20世纪20年代创造）。与液体或注入有关的词语是隐喻表示过多饮酒或吸毒而形成的自然来源： sloshed、oiled、tanked 和 loaded 只是其中少数例子。有些词语不易界定其类别或其原意较不清楚，如 tight （首次出现于19世纪30年代）、 plastered （首次出现于1912年）、 blotto （可能源自 blot ，首次出现于1917年）以及 stoned （显然来自词语 stone-drunk和stone-cold ，并于1945年首次以 stone 的形式出现）。正如大家对俚语的普遍看法，大多数表示“喝醉的，酒醉的”的现行词语都较新；在如上所列词汇中， blotto、crocked、fried、loaded、plastered、tanked、tight 和 oiled 首次见载于19世纪中叶，只有 tight 和 oiled 是所知早于那个时期 〔slanguage〕Language marked by the use of slang.俚语化语言：以使用俚语为特征的语言〔igg〕Igg, a shortened form of ignore, seems to have come into American speech from jive, the special jargon of Black jazz musicians in the 1930's. Its use has spread from the musicians' exclusive jargon into the Black communities of Northern U.S. cities. The reduction of a word to its initial syllable is a common source of slang or informal words, especially among groups of speakers who for reasons of exclusivity like to remain avant garde in their speech. Often such words come into general use, as in mike for microphone. Igg 一词作为 ignore 一词的简略语，可能是从20世纪30年代黑人爵士乐乐师的专业术语中进入美国语言的。该词从乐师独有的术语传入美国北部城市的黑人聚居区。将一个字缩短到它开头的几个字母是俚语和非正式用语的一个主要来源，有些语言圈的人为保持其独特性而尽量在语言上保持特殊，他们就常用这种方法。这种词语在生活中 经常使用，就象用 mike 代表 microphone 这个词 〔slanguage〕Slang peculiar to a group:特有俚语：某个团体特有的俚语：〔duke〕rhyming slang for forks [fingers] forks的押韵俚语 [手指] 〔gussy〕Perhaps from Australian slang gussie [an effeminate man] [diminutive of the personal name] Augustus 可能源自 澳大利亚俚语 gussie [女性化的男子] Augustus的人称名词小后缀 〔kidnap〕Kidnapper seems to have originated appropriately enough among those who perpetrate this crime. We know this becausekid and napper, the two parts of the compound, were slang of the sort that criminals might use. Kid, which some still find slangy, was considered low slang when kidnapper was formed, and napper is obsolete slang for a thief, coming from the verbnap, "to seize a person or thing, steal.” Nap is possibly a variant ofnab, which still has a slangy ring to it.In 1678, the year in which the word is first recorded,kidnappers plied their trade on behalf of plantations in colonies such as the ones in North America.The term later took on the broader sense that it has today.The verbkidnap is recorded later (1682) than the noun and so is possibly a back-formation,that is, people have assumed that a kidnapper kidnaps.Kidnapper 似乎恰好源于犯这种罪的人。 我们知道这个复合词的两个部分kid 和 napper 是这种罪犯们可能用的俚语。 Kidnapper 形成时 kid 被认为是低等的俚语，现在kid仍有俚语性质， napper 是指小偷的废弃的俚语， 从动词nap 而来， 指“抓住人或东西，偷。” Nap 可能是nab 的变体， 它也仍有俚语的性质。1678年这个词在英语中第一次记录时，绑架者为了如北美的殖民地种植园的利益进行了大量绑架。这个词后来又有象今天这么广的含义，动词kidnap 比名词记录要晚（1682年）， 所以可能是逆构词，也就是人们认为“绑架者”会绑架〔rent〕When young people talk about theirrents, that is, their parents, they are using a slang term that is of interest to language historians, if not necessarily thrilling for parents themselves. The term is a prime example of one of the fundamental characteristics of slang, which continually creates novel ways of expressing what are often rather ordinary things (if parents may be considered ordinary things). Slang has recently produced two expressions for "parents" that have gained wide currency— rents and parental units. Both expressions demonstrate slang's use of unusual or creative linguistic means to achieve novelty of expression. While there are many slang terms, such as bod for body or rad for radical, that result from the clipping of unstressed syllables, rents is a clipping that drops a stressed syllable, much like the similar term za, "pizza.” The desire to coin new ways of referring to things also leads speakers of slang to use circumlocutions like knuckle sandwich for "punch.” Parental units falls into this category. It plays on the jargon of bureaucrats and social science, in which the world is viewed as so much data waiting to be quantified. The appearance of terms such as rents and parental units also shows that all available styles and levels of language can be grist for slang's mill—so long as the material is perceived as irreverent, funny, or just plain cool. 年轻人谈论他们的rents （即父母）时，即使肯定不会令他们的父母感到兴奋，他们却使用了一个令语言历史学家很感兴趣的俚语。Rents是俚语一个基本特色的典范，这一基本特色就是不断创造新颖词汇来表示通常极为普通的事物（如果父母会被认为是普通事物的话）。最近俚语中产生了两个"父（母）亲"的词语并被普遍使用── rents 和 parental units 。这两个词语表明俚语用不同寻常的或创造性的语言工具来获取表达上的新颖。虽然因省略非重读音节产生了许多俚语词汇，如用 bod 指body、用 rad 指radical，但 rents 却是省略重读音节后的部分，非常类似相近词汇 za "pizza（比萨饼）"。期望创造指代事物的新词也使得满口俚语的人运用赘语，如用 knuckle sandwich 指"punch（用拳击）"。 Parental units 也属于赘语的范围。它用作官僚主义者的行话以及科学术语，因为对于官僚主义者和科学工作者来讲世界就是等待量化的大量数据。诸如 rents 和 parental units 这些俚语的出现也表明语言现有的全部风格和水平都是俚语的有益补充──只要认为内容是不敬的、有趣的或者纯粹扮酷的 〔subliterate〕Of, relating to, or being language that is dialectal, slangy, or full of jargon.方言的：方言的，与之有关的，构成方言、俚语或土语的，与之有关的〔slang〕A kind of language occurring chiefly in casual and playful speech, made up typically of short-lived coinages and figures of speech that are deliberately used in place of standard terms for added raciness, humor, irreverence, or other effect.俚语：主要出现在非正式的、游戏性的话语中的一种语言，基本由存在时间很短的派生词和修辞构成，它们被故意地用来取代标准的词语以达到生动、幽默、无礼或其它效果 |
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