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释义 | 〔gorilla〕Two traditions of exploration come together in the history of the wordgorilla, which also illustrates how knowledge of the classics has influenced scientific terminology.Dr. Thomas S. Savage, an American missionary to western Africa,first described the gorilla in 1847, giving it the New Latin nameTroglodytes gorilla. In doing so he was using his knowledge of Greek literature,in which there exists a fourth-centuryb.c. translation of a report written by Hanno, another visitor to western Africa. This Carthaginian navigator,who voyaged before 480b.c. , went as far as Sierra Leone in his explorations.In the Greek translation of his reporthe tells of seeingGorillai, the name of which he allegedly learned from local informantsand which he thought were members of a tribe of hairy women.In fact they were probably the same creatures that Thomas Savage described about 24 centuries later.在涉及到gorilla 这个词的历史时,传说中的两次探险可以联系在一起, 这同样也证明了古典文学对科学术语命名的影响。汤姆斯·S·萨维奇医生,到西非传教的美国传教士,在1847年第一次描述了大猩猩并给它起了个新拉丁语名字Troglodytes gorilla 。 在命名时他就用了希腊文学知识,这个命名也同样出现在一本公元前 4世纪安诺写的见闻译本里,安诺也到过西非。 这位迦太基航海家,公元前 480年之前开始出航, 在他的探险过程中,最远到达过塞拉利昂。在他写见闻的希腊译本里,他说他见到了Gorillai , 据他自己声称他是从当地向导那儿学到这个名字的,并认为它是指多毛女人部落的成员。实际上他们可能是大约24世纪以后汤姆斯·萨奇所描述的同样的动物〔lonely〕Henry Bradley, one of the four editors of theOxford English Dictionary, said "It is a truth often overlooked, but not unimportant, that every addition to the resources of a language must in the first instance have been due to an act (though not necessarily to a voluntary or conscious act) of some one person.”In many casesthis one person may have been an author,since the first recorded instance of a word is often found in an author's work.Of course, as Bradley warns,this is the firstrecorded instance; it is possible that a given author picked up the word or sense somewhere elseor that these reside undiscovered in an earlier work.In any caseit might be a minor relief of our condition the next time we feel lonely to know that the first recorded instance of the wordlonely occurs in the works of Shakespeare. The passage appears inCoriolanus (1607-1608) in a speech by Coriolanus to his mother Volumnia:"My mother, you wot [know] well/My hazards still have been your solace, and/Believe't not lightly—though I go alone,/Like to alonely dragon, that his fen/Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen—your son/Will or exceed the common or be caught/With cautelous [crafty] baits and practice.” Lonely here, of course, has the sense "solitary.” The dragon does not feel dejected,or if he does,he does not seem to know how to reach out to others effectively.牛津英语词典 的四位编纂者之一亨利·布莱德雷说: “人们经常忽视这样一个现实,但它并非不重要,那就是对某种语言词汇的每一次添加都首先是由于某一个人的行为(尽管不一定是自愿的或有意识的行为)”。许多时候,这一个人可能是个作者,因为一个词有记载的首次使用往往出自一位作者的作品。当然,正如布莱德雷所提醒人们的,这是首次有记载的 的例子; 某个作者可能是从别处学到这个词或这个意思,或是这个词或意思在更早的作品中已经出现,只是未被人们发现。不管怎样,当我们知道lonely 这个词的有记载的首次使用出现在莎士比亚的作品中时,这些都不大能减轻我们的沮丧心情。 在卡里奥拉纳斯 (1607-1608年)中, 卡里奥拉纳斯对他母亲弗罗姆尼娅讲的一段话中有这样的文字:“我的母亲,你清楚地知道/我的冒险一直是你的安慰,而且/不要轻信——尽管我要只身前往,/就象去面对一条孤单的 龙,他的沼泽/令人谈而色变,尽管并未亲见——你的儿子/决意或是胜过凡人或是被狡猾的圈套和手段擒捉”。 Lonely 在这里的意思当然是“孤单的”。 龙不会感到沮丧,即便它感到沮丧,他也不太可能知道如何让别人体会到它的感情〔analogist〕"Learning more from books than from life, he was an analogist"(Times Literary Supplement)“他是个类比推理者,从书本上学到的比从生活中学到的还要多”(时代文学增刊)〔underbelly〕"the soft underbelly of the Axis"(Winston S. Churchill)"So much . . . can be learned from these and other neglected sources from the underbelly of traditional scholarship"(Stephen Jay Gould)“轴心国的薄弱部位”(温斯顿S.丘吉尔)“以传统学问薄弱部分的这些或那些资料中能够学到这么多东西”(斯蒂芬·杰·古尔德)〔Latinize〕To cause to adopt or acquire Latin characteristics or customs.使拉丁化:导致…采纳或学到拉丁特点或习惯的 |
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