| 单词 | 普通名词 |
| 释义 | 〔Philistine〕It has never been good to be a Philistine.Samson, Saul, and David in the Bible helped bring the Philistines into prominence because they were such prominent opponents.Even though the Philistines have long since disappeared,their name has lived on in the Old Testament.The English name for them,Philistines, which goes back through Late Latin and Greek to Hebrew, is first found in Middle English,wherePhilistiens, the ancestor of our word, is recorded in a work composed before 1325. Beginning in the 17th centuryphilistine was used as a common noun usually in the plural to refer to various groups considered the enemy,such as literary critics.In Germany in the same centuryit is said that in a memorial at Jena for a student who had been killed in a town-gown quarrel,the minister preached a sermon from the text "Philister über dir Simson! [The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!],”the words of Delilah to Samson after she attempted to render him powerless before his Philistine enemies.From this usage it is said that German students came to usePhilister, the German equivalent of Philistine, to denote nonstudents and hence uncultured or materialistic people.Both usages were picked up in English in the early 19th century.做非利士人从来没有好处。《圣经》中的参孙、索尔和大卫使非利士人出名是因为他们是很优秀的对手。尽管非利士人已消失很久了，他们的名字却仍存在于《旧约》当中。他们的英文名称Philistines 可由晚期拉丁语和希腊语追溯到希伯来语， 是在中世纪英语中首先发现的，其中我们所用词的前身Philistines 记载在一部1325年前的著作中。 17世纪以来，Philistine 被用作普通名词并且常以复数形式出现， 意指被认为是敌人的各种团体，如文学批评家。在同一世纪的德国，据说在耶拿举行的纪念一名在市民和大学生争执中被杀的学生的纪念会上，牧师从“［非利士人比你强，参孙!］”中选取了一段做布道，就是迪莱勒在试图使参孙在他的非利士手面前变得软弱无力后说的那些话。这段话的用法中可见德国学生开始使用philister 作为 philistine 的德语替代语， 意指不是学生因此也就是没有文化以及不务实的人。这两种用法在19世纪早期的英语中均能找到〔faubourg〕The close political ties between Scotland and France during the 15th through 17th centuries were reflected in linguistic borrowing from French to Scots,as in the case offaubourg, a synonym for suburb. In Englandfaubourg seems to have lost the competition with the more popular suburb. However, in contemporary American English the word still exists,although it is virtually confined to the city of New Orleans, where,in fact,faubourg remains in use because of the city's French background. Even there it is used not as a common noun likesuburb but in combination in the names of various quarters of the city,for example,Faubourg Sainte Marie. These city districts, like their counterparts in Paris,such asFaubourg Saint-Germain and Faubourg Saint-Antoine, originally lay outside the city limits, hence the designationfaubourg, originally from Old French fors, "outside,” and borc, "town.” As the population grew outward,these former suburbs became part of the city proper.在苏格兰语对法语语言上的借用反应了15世纪到17世纪之间苏格兰与法国紧密的政治纽带，例如faubourg， 是 suburb 的同义词。 在英国，faubourg 看起来已丧失了与更流行的 suburb 的竞争力。 然而，在当代美国英语中，这个词仍然存在，尽管实际上它限于新奥尔良城。事实上，faubourg 保持在新奥尔良的使用是因为这个城市的法语背景。 它甚至不是像suburb 那样作为一个普通名词使用， 而是与城市的不同区的名字连在一起，例如圣玛丽亚区 。 这些城区，就像它们在巴黎的对应地区，如圣格梅茵区 和 圣安东尼区 一样，一般位于城区的外围， 因此名称faubourg 源自于古法语 fors ，“外面”，和 borc， “城镇”。 随着人口的向外增长，这些前郊区成了城区的一部分〔spa〕The wordspa, taken from the name of the famous mineral springs in Spa, Belgium, has become a common noun denoting any place with a medicinal or mineral spring.Less well known is its regional sense, "soda fountain,”probably an allusion to the carbonated or "mineral" waterthat is a staple ingredient of many soda fountain concoctions.单词spa 是由比利时著名的矿泉胜地斯帕而来的， 现已成为一普通名词用来指任何有药泉或矿泉的地方。这个词本来的意思“碳酸水”鲜为人知，可能暗指充满二氧化碳的水或“矿物”水，它是碳酸饮料的主要成份〔Frankenstein〕The wordFrankenstein has taken on a life of its own, somewhat like the monster created from parts of corpses by the Swiss student Frankenstein, whose name serves as the title of Mary Shelley's novel, published in 1818. People have persisted in calling the monster Frankenstein;in fact, the first recorded use of the name as a common noun in 1838refers to mules as "Frankensteins.”The word has gone on to refer to "a monster having the appearance of a man" and "an agency that slips from the control of and ultimately destroys its creator.”Since most people have given the name of the novel's protagonist to his creation,Frankenstein's monster has, in a sense, destroyed its creator.单词Franerstein 有些象瑞士学生弗兰肯斯泰因（此名成为1818年出版的玛丽·雪莱小说的书名）从部分死尸器官所造的怪物一样，已经具备了自己的生命力。 人们坚持将那个怪物称作弗兰肯斯泰因；实际上此词于1838年第一次用作普通名词，把顽固的人称作“弗兰肯斯泰因”。此词后来演变为指“人形怪物”和“脱离创造者的控制并最终毁灭其创造者的媒介”。因为多数人把小说中主角的名字转借给了他的创造物，所以，从某种意义上说，弗兰肯斯泰因创造的怪物已经毁灭了他本人〔antonomasia〕The substitution of a personal name for a common noun to designate a member of a group or class, as in calling a traitor a "Benedict Arnold.”代类名：以个人名字代替一普通名词来代表一组或一类的成员之一，如将叛徒称为“本尼狄克·阿诺德”〔mentor〕The wordmentor is an example of the way in which the great works of literature live on without our knowing it. The word has recently gained currency in the professional world,where it is thought to be a good idea to have a mentor, a wise and trusted counselor, guiding one's career, preferably in the upper reaches of the organization.We owe this word to the more heroic age of Homer,in whoseOdyssey Mentor is the trusted friend of Odysseus left in charge of the household during Odysseus's absence. More important for our usage of the wordmentor, Athena disguised as Mentor guides Odysseus's son Telemachus in his search for his father.Fénelon in his romanceTélémaque (1699) emphasized Mentor as a character, and so it was that in French (1749) and English (1750)mentor, going back through Latin to a Greek name, became a common noun meaning "wise counselor,” first recorded in 1750.Mentor is an appropriate name for such a person because it probably meant "adviser" in Greekand comes from the Indo-European rootmen- 1, meaning "to think.”词语mentor 使我们看到了伟大的文学作品是如何在我们毫无察觉的情况下而经久而不衰的。 这个词最近开始在职业界通用起来，在职业界中，能有一个“良师”， 一个忠实而又聪明的顾问来指导你的职业生涯，尤其是你的提升，真不失为一个好办法。这个词来源于荷马英雄时代，在荷马史诗Odyssey 中，孟托是奥德赛的忠实朋友，奥德赛出征时将其留下以掌管家事。 对于我们今天mentor 这个词的用法更为重要的一个事实是， 雅典娜将自己装扮成孟托而引导奥德赛之子忒勒马科斯去寻找他的父亲。费奈隆在他的传奇故事泰雷马克历险记 （1699年）中强调了孟托这一人物， 正因为如此，这一从一个希腊人名经拉丁文演化而来的词mentor 在法语(1749年）和英语(1750年）中成了一个意为“贤明的顾问”的普通名词， 并在1750年被首次记载。Mentor 对于一个贤明的顾问是个合适的名称， 因为它在希腊语中可能有“顾问”之意，而且源自印欧语词根men- 1， 又有“思考”之意〔rattle〕A large proportion (86 percent) of the Usage Panel approved the use of the verbrattle in the sense "to unnerve" in the first edition ofThe American Heritage Dictionary, published in 1969. But we may ask how the verbrattle came to have such a sense. The earliest use of the word is found in a name,Johannes Ratellebagg, recorded in a document of around 1273; the earliest use of the word as a common noun (in the sense "to flap, used of a banner") is found in a work written about 1300and copied in manuscript around 1330.It is thought that the word probably comes from Middle Dutchratelen, which may be imitative in origin. In any case,the wordratelen was used mainly in intransitive senses such as "to make a rattling sound.”Already in Middle English, however, the transitive sense "to babble something" existed,and other transitive senses,as in "to make something rattle,” "to stir up, rouse,” "to drive in a rapid, rattling manner,” came into existence from the 16th century on.The transitive sense "to unnerve,”that is, "to make somebody rattle,” is first found in an American work of 1869.词语用法专题小组中有相当一部分人（百分之八十六）都同意rattle 这个词有“使人不安”的意思， 1969年出版的美国经典辞书 第一版收录了这一意思。 但人们不禁要问动词rattle 为何有了这个意思。 该词最早的使用发现于1273年前后记载的一个文件中的Johannes Ratellebagg 这个名字中； 1300年这个词第一次被用作普通名词（意为“飘扬，用于旗帜”），1330年又见于手抄的印本中。人们认为这个词可能来自原来可能是拟声词的中古德语ratelen 。 不过无论怎样，ratelen 这个词本来只是作为不及物动词来使用， 如发出嘎嘎声等意思。在中古英语中，“含糊不清地说出”这一及物动词的意思就已存在，该词其它的及物意思，如“使发出嘎嘎声”、“激起，唤醒”“嘎嘎响地急速向前拖”从16世纪开始就形成了。及物意思“使不安，”即“使某人惊慌”首先出现于1869年的美国作品中〔marshal〕Hard-riding marshals of the Wild West in pursuit of criminalsreemphasize the relationship of the wordmarshal with horses. The Germanic ancestor of our wordmarshal is a compound made up of .marhaz, "horse" (related to the source of our word mare ), and .skalkaz, "servant,” meaning as a whole literally "horse servant,”hence "groom.”The Frankish descendant of this Germanic word,.marahskalk, starting from these humble beginnings, came to designate a high royal official and also a high military commander, not surprisingly so, given the importance of the horse in medieval warfare.The word passed into the period (beginning in 800) in which we speak of Old French, after the Franks and their Germanic language had been fused with the surrounding culture descended from Roman Gaul.When the Normans established a French-speaking official class in England,the Old French word came with them.The Middle English source of our word is first recorded as a surname in 1218 (and the surname Marshal, now spelled Marshall, has been held by some famous people),but it is first recorded as a common noun with the sense "high officer of the royal court" in the first English language proclamation (1258) by an English king, Henry III, after the Norman Conquest.Marshal was applied to this high royal official's deputies, who were officers of courts of law,and the word continued to designate various officials involved with courts of law and law enforcement,including the horseback-riding marshals we are familiar with in the United States.西部荒野骑着马对罪犯紧追不舍的警长形象，再次强调了marshal 这个词与马之间的联系。 我们这个单词marshal 的日耳曼语原形是一个由 marhaz “马”（与 mare 的语源相关）和 skalkaz “仆人，佣人”组成的合成词， 字面意思是“马的仆人”，也就是后来的“马夫”。这个日耳曼词的法兰克语的演变marahskalk 从最初卑微的含义演变到特指高级王室官员及高级军事将领， 不仅如此，在中世纪的战场上马也被提升到了重要地位。在法兰克人和他们所说的日耳曼语一起融入周围的罗马高卢人文化之后，这个词进入了我们讲古法语的时代（开始于800年）。当诺曼底人在英格兰建立了一个讲法语的官员阶层之后，古法语里的这个词便随之而来。该词在中世纪英语中最早于1218年作为一个姓氏被记录下来（一些著名人士的姓马歇尔，现在的拼写法为Marshall)，但作为指“王室的高级官员”的普通名词，它最早出现于英国王亨利三世在诺曼征服之后做的一篇英文公告(1258年）。在此文中Marshal 用于指高级王室官员的代表， 也就是司法官员。该词涉及法律和法律实施的不同官员的含义延续了下来，其中就包括我们所熟悉的美国西部骑在马背上的警长〔milquetoast〕An indication of the effect on the English language of popular culture such as that found in comic strips is the adoption of names from the strips as English words.Casper Milquetoast, created by Harold Webster in 1924, was a timid and retiring man,whose name was, of course, created from the name of a timid food.The first instance ofmilquetoast as a common noun is found in the mid-1930's. Milquetoast thus joins the ranks of other such words, includingsad sack, from a blundering army private invented by George Baker in 1942,andWimpy, from J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye comic strip, which became a trade name for a hamburger.If we look to the related world of the animated cartoon,we must of course acknowledgeMickey Mouse, which has become a slang term for something that is easy, insignificant, small-time, worthless, or petty. 如果我们要在戏剧漫画中找到流行文化对英语语言的影响，那么漫画中的人物的名字被接受为英语单词可以算是例证了，1924年赫拉德·韦伯斯特所创造的卡斯珀·米尔克吐斯特是一个胆小如鼠的人，他的名字当然是从一种非常柔软的食品而得来。Milquetoast 作为一个普通名词的第一例子于20世纪30年代中期被发现。 这样milquetoast 就加入了一类词， 这类词包括sad sack ， 一个由乔治·贝克于1942年发明指代愚蠢的陆军士兵的词汇，和Wimpy ，一个从滑稽漫画 突眼 中的丁·惠灵顿·温皮而得来的词， 它现在已成为汉堡包的商标。如果我们再看看相关的动画世界，我们当然得承认米奇老鼠 现在已成为指代容易的、不重要的、没有价值的或琐碎的东西的一个俚语词 〔typhoon〕Perhaps few words better illustrate the polyglot background of English thantyphoon, with its Chinese, Arabic, East Indian, and Greek background. The Greek wordtyphon, both the name of the father of the winds and a common noun meaning "whirlwind, typhoon,” was borrowed into Arabic (as was many a Greek word during the Middle Ages, when Arabic learning both preserved the classical heritage and expanded upon it, passing it on to Europe).Ùūfān, the Arabic version of the Greek word, passed into languages spoken in India,where Arabic-speaking Moslem invaders had settled in the 11th century.Thus the descendant of the Arabic word,passing into English (first recorded in 1588) through an Indian languageand appearing in English in forms such astouffon and tufan, originally referred specifically to a severe storm in India.China, another great empire, gave us yet another word for a storm,in this case the hurricane that occurred in the waters around China.This Chinese word in its Cantonese form,toi fung, was similar to our Arabic borrowing and is first recorded in English guise astuffoon in 1699. The various forms coalesced and finally becametyphoon. 也许很少有单词能像typhoon 一样表明汉语、阿拉伯语、东印度语和希腊语的多国语言背景。 希腊单词typhon 既是风神的姓名又是意为“旋风，台风”的普通名词， 被借入到阿拉伯语（就象在中世纪时许多希腊语单词进入阿拉伯语一样，那时，阿拉伯人的学问保存了古典的风格，同时在把它传向欧洲时又有所扩充）。Tufan ，希腊语的阿拉伯语形式， 传入到了印度人使用的语言，11世纪时讲阿拉伯语的穆斯林入侵者在印度定居下来。这样，阿拉伯语单词的衍生，从印度语言进入英语（最早记载于1588年），并以如touffon 和 tufan 的形式出现于英语中， 最先特指印度的猛烈风暴。中国，另一个大帝国，给了我们风暴的另一个单词，这里指的是在中国附近洋面发生的飓风。汉语单词的广东语形式toi fung 同我们的阿拉伯语借用词相近， 最早以tuffoon 的形式于1699年载入英语。 各种形式合并在一起最后变成了typhoon |
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