单词 | 标准英语 |
释义 | 〔flunky〕The wordflunky has come into Standard English from Scots, in which the word meant "liveried manservant, footman,”coming at least by the 19th century to be a term of contempt.The word is first recorded and defined in a work about Scots published in 1782.The definition states that aflunky is "literally a sidesman or attendant at your flank,” which gives support to the suggestion thatflunky is a derivative and alteration of flanker, "one who stands at a person's flank.”flunky 一词从苏格兰演变为标准英语。 苏格兰语中,该词意思为“穿制服的男仆,脚夫,”至少在19世纪时变为表示蔑视的词语。该词首先于1782年的一本有关苏格兰的书中得到记载和定义。定义中说flunky 在“字面意思是身边的人或身旁的随从”, 该定义支持了有关flunky 是由 flanker 派生和演变而来的说法, 意思是“一个站在别人身边的人”〔drudge〕"Out here on the Chesapeake,they call it ‘drudging for arsters,’”says Charles Kuralt in his bookOn the Road with Charles Kuralt. The standard English verbdredge is pronounced with a centralized vowel by Chesapeake Bay oyster fishermen, yielding drudge. Drudge in turn has been picked up by city dwellers on the Delmarva Peninsula;a survey of some young people from Baltimore revealed thatthey did not even know that there was a standard English verbdredge. Kuralt gives the regional pronunciation a whimsical folk etymology with the standard meaning ofdrudge, "to do tedious, menial, or unpleasant work,” observing, "Whatever you do for a living, it's not as hard as ‘drudging for arsters.’”在切萨皮克湾那边,他们把它称之为“为捕虾做苦工,”查尔斯·库洛特在他的与查尔斯·库洛特同游 一书中谈及。 标准英语动词dredge ,在发音时其元音被切萨皮克湾捕虾渔民发成中元音,随后产生 drudge。 Drudge 又被德尔马瓦半岛一城市居民吸收;对来自巴尔的摩的一部分年轻人的调查表明,他们甚至不知道有一个标准英语动词dredge 。 对具有标准含义的drudge “做单调、卑贱或无趣工作”,库洛特给出了一个稀奇古怪的民俗语源, 他说道,“无论你以何谋生,再没有比捕虾做的工更苦的了”〔hisself〕Speakers of some vernacular American dialects, particularly in the South, may use the possessive reflexive formhisself instead of himself (as in He cut hisself shaving ) and theirselves or theirself for themselves (as in They found theirselves alone ). These forms reflect the tendency of speakers of vernacular dialects to regularize irregular patterns found in the corresponding standard variety. In Standard English, the pattern of reflexive pronoun forms shows slightly irregular patterning; all forms but two are composed of the possessive form of the pronoun and -self or -selves, as in myself or ourselves. The exceptions are himself and themselves, which are formed by attaching the suffix -self/-selves to the object forms of he and they rather than their possessive forms. Speakers who use hisself and theirselves are smoothing out the pattern's inconsistencies by applying the same rule to all forms in the set.·A further regularization is the use of -self regardless of number, yielding the forms ourself and theirself. Using a singular form in a plural context may seem imprecise, but the plural meaning of ourself and theirself is made clear by the presence of the plural forms our- and their-. Hisself and theirselves have origins in British English and are still prevalent today in vernacular speech in England. 一些美国本土方言的使用者,尤其是美国南方人,可能会用所有格的反身代词形式hisself 代替 himself (如 He cut hisself shaving﹝刮脸时他割到自己﹞ )以及 theirselves 或 theirself 代替 themselves (如 They found theirselves alone﹝他们发觉自己很孤独﹞ )。这些形式反映出本土方言使用者试图规则化相应标准变化中的不规则模式。在标准英语中,反身代词模式显示出略微不规则模式的形成;除两个反身代词外,所有的反身代词都由代词的所有格形式加 -self 或 -selves 构成(如 myself 或 ourselves )。例外的就是 himself 和 themselves ,将后缀 -self/-selves 附加在 he 和 they 的宾格形式而不是所有格形式上形成。采用 hisself 和 theirselves 的本土方言使用者消除了将同一规则用于一组中所有形式时产生的模式矛盾。进一步的规则化是不考虑数量而全部使用 -self ,由此产生 ourself 和 theirself 。在复数上下文中使用单数形式似乎有失严谨,但 ourself 和 theirself 的复数含义已由复数形式的 our- 和 their-清楚表明。Hisself 和 theirselves 起源于英式英语并在英国本土语言中依然流行 〔possum〕Since English is a language that stresses some syllables and not others, weakly stressed syllables,especially those preceding strong stresses, are dropped at times.This process, called aphesis when it occurs at the beginning of a word,is more common in regional American dialects than in the more conservative Standard English,which tends to retain in pronunciation anything reflected in spelling.Although many American dialects feature aphesis,it is most famous in the dialects of the South,where it yields pronunciationssuch ascount of for (on) account of, tater for potato, possum for opossum, and skeeter for mosquito. 由于英语是一种强调某些音节而不强调另一些音节的语言,所以弱音音节,特别是那些在重音音节之前的弱音音节就常常被省掉了。这个过程,如发生于一个字的开头就叫做词首非重读短元音省略。这种现象在美国地方方言中比在更为保守的标准英语中要常见得多,因为标准英语趋向于将拼写中的每一个字母都在发音中加以保存。虽然许多美国方言具有词首非重读短元音省略的特征,但这一现象在南方的方言中最为显著,并产生了许多新发音,如(on) account of 被读成 count of,potato 被读成 tater,opossum 被读成 possum 以及 mosquito 则被读成 skeeter 〔mill〕Tomill, in Western U.S. English, means "to halt a cattle stampede by turning the lead animals.”In theOxford English Dictionary we find this 19th-century example of the verb: "At last the cattle ran with less energy, and it was presently easy to ‘mill’ them into a circle and to turn them where it seemed most desirable" (Munsey's Magazine).This usage ofmill comes from the resemblance of the cattle's circular motion to the action of millstones. A related intransitive sense of the verb is better known in Standard English: A crowd milled around in the street. Originally this sense ofmill also meant "circular motion"; now it means "to move around in churning confusion"with no pattern in particular.Mill 这个词在美国西部所说的英语中, 意为“通过让领头牲畜绕圈子跑来制止牛群的惊跑”。在牛津英语词典 中, 我们可以找到该动词19世纪用法的例子: “最后牛群终于跑得快没劲儿了,这时候可以容易地驱赶头牛,把其它牛绕进圈子里,然后把它们赶到最合适的地方去” (芒西杂志)。Mill 的这种用法来自牛群绕圈跑与磨石运作的相似之处。 该词作不及物动词时所具有的与此相关的意义在标准英语中更为常见: 一群人在大街上兜圈子。 Mill 的这一含义本来亦指“旋转运动”; 现在它指“在旋涡般的混乱中到处移动”,不再有其它特指〔agin〕The spelling ofagin reflects both the raised vowel before a nasal consonant, typical of Southern dialects, and a reduced final consonant cluster, typical of several regional varieties.Agin has a wide spectrum of senses in the regional speech of those who pronounce it this way. Indeed, these regional senses are tied to the pronunciation,for standard Englishagainst does not quite capture the full implication of the assertion "I'm agin him" — that is, "opposed to him and all that he stands for.”Another regional sense recalls the original literal Old English sense of "facing; next to" (see the first four senses ofagainst in the Oxford English Dictionary), where standard English would haveby: Their house is agin the mountain.Agin may be used figuratively with regard to time chiefly in South Midland dialects,meaning "by or before (a specified time)”: "I'll be there agin daylight" (North Carolina informant in DARE).词汇agin 的拼写既反映了典型的南部方言──鼻辅音前的元音的提高, 又反映了压缩的后辅音群──几种典型的地方变体的特征。Agin 在它被如此发音的地方方言有广泛的意思。 确实,这些地域意义是和读音联系在一起的,因为标准英语中against 没有完全表达 "I'm agin him" 所隐含的意义── 即“反对他及他所代表的一切。”另外一个地域意义使人想起古英语中最初的文学用语“面对;紧靠着”(参阅《牛津英语词典》中against 的前四个释义), 而在标准英语中应该用by: 傍山而建的房屋。Agin 主要在中南部方言中可以比喻地用来表示时间,意思是“到或在…(特定时间)前”: “天亮前我可到达” (美国区域英语词典的北卡罗来纳提供资料者)〔hardly〕The use ofhardly with a negative is avoided in Standard English. Some critics have been puzzled that adverbs such ashardly, rarely, and scarcely should be treated as negatives in the traditional strictures against double negation, which tars sentences likeI couldn't hardly see him with the same brush as I didn't get none. After all, they argue, the sentenceMary hardly laughed entails that Mary did laugh, not that she didn't,and therefore does not express a negative proposition.Buthardly and scarcely occur with other negative expressions in a number of ways. For one thing, they combine with items such asany and at all, which are characteristically associated with negative contexts: we sayI hardly saw him at all or I never saw him at all but notI occasionally saw him at all; we sayI hardly had any time or I didn't have any time but notI had any time, and so on. Like other negative adverbs,hardly triggers inversion of the subject and auxiliary when it begins a sentence. Thus we sayHardly had I arrived when she left, on the pattern of Never have I read such a book or At no time has he condemned the movement. Such inversion is not used with other adverbs:we would not sayOccasionally has he addressed this question or To a slight degree have they changed their position. The fact is that adverbs such ashardly are semantically negative in that they qualify a state or an event relative to the limiting case of nonoccurrence.Thus the meaning ofhardly is, roughly, "almost not at all"; the meaning ofrarely is "practically never"; and so forth. These adverbs are felt to have a negative component in their meaning,and it should not be surprising that grammarians have reacted to combinations ofhardly with negatives in the same way that they have reacted to combinations of pairs of negatives such as not and none. See Usage Note at double negative ,rarely ,scarcely Hardly 和一个否定词在一起的用法在标准英语中应尽量避免, 一些批评学家一直怀疑象hardly,rarely 和 scarcely 这样的副词在传统的双重否定的句中应被视为否定词, 这样的词使句子象I couldn't hardly see him 和 I didn't get none 一样被弄糟了, 他们争论说,毕竟句子Mary hardly laughed 的意思是玛丽的确笑了, 而不是她没笑,所以不表示否定的建议。但是hardly 和 scarcely 和其他的否定表示一起在许多方面出现, 举例说,他们和象any 和 at all 这样独特的和否定上下文联系的条目组合在一起, 我们说I hardly saw him at all 或 I never saw him at all , 但并不是I occasionally saw him at all; 我们说I hardly had any time 或 I didn't have any time 但不是I had any time 等。 象其它否定副词,hardly 在句子开头时引起主语和助动词的倒装, 于是我们说Hardly had I arrived when she left, 和 Never have I read such a book 或 At no time has he condemned the movement. 等同样的句型。 别的副词并不用这样的倒装:我们不能说Occasionally has he addressed this question 或 To a slight degree have they changed their position 。 事实是象hardly 这样的副词语义上是否定的, 他们限定修饰了与不发生有关的状态或事件。于是hardly 的意思大概是“几乎根本不”; rarely 的意思大概是“实际上没有”;等等。 这些副词在他们的意思里留有否定的成分,语法学家们对hardly 和否定词组合的反应和对一对否定词如 not 和 none组合的反应一样是不足为奇的 参见 double negative,rarely,scarcely〔Fowler〕British lexicographer who collaborated with his brotherFrancis (1870-1918) on The King's English (1906) and the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1911). He also wrote A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926). 福勒,亨利·沃森:(1858-1933) 英国词典编纂者,和其弟弗朗西斯 (1870-1918年)合著了 《标准英语》 (1906年)和 《牛津简明英语词典》 (1911年)。他还著了 《现代英语用法词典》 (1926年) 〔complected〕Complected has a long history in American folk speech, showing up, for example, in 1806 in the journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: “[The Indians] are . . . reather lighter complected . . . than the Indians of the Missouri" (Meriwether Lewis).Complected has long been treated as a dialectal term in dictionaries, but it actually should be regarded as informal Standard English,since its wide distribution (including New England, the Midwest, the South, and elsewhere)disqualifies it as a true regionalism.Its use by one western Texas informant quoted inDARE extends its semantic domain beyond skin color to general appearance: "a fat-complected man.” Complected 在美国民间传说中有一段很长的历史, 例如,1806年,在路易斯和克拉克的探险旅行中: “ …相对密苏里印第安人的脸色白皙一些” (玛丽维瑟尔·路易斯)。Complected 这个词长期以来在字典中一直被当作方言看待, 但是它实际上应该算作非正式标准英语,它的使用是如此广泛(包括新英格兰、中西部、南方和其它地区),所以它不是地区性的。据一位得克萨斯州西部的提供消息者在DARE 中所引用的用法已延伸了其语义上的范围,即从专指肤色到指整体形象: “一个肥胖男人” 〔quark〕"Three quarks for Muster Mark! / Sure he hasn't got much of a bark / And sure any he has it's all beside the mark.” This passage of James Joyce'sFinnegans Wake is part of a scurrilous 13-line poem directed against King Mark,the cuckolded husband in the Tristan legend.The poem and the accompanying prose are packed with names of birds and words suggestive of birds,and the poem is a squawk,like the cawing of a crow, against King Mark.Thus, Joyce uses the wordquark, which comes from the standard English verbquark, meaning "to caw, croak,” and also from the dialectal verb quawk, meaning"to caw, screech like a bird.” But Joyce'squark was not what it has become: "any of a group of hypothetical subatomic particles proposed as the fundamental units of matter.”Murray Gell-Mann, the physicist who proposed these particles, in a private letter of June 27, 1978, to the editor of theOxford English Dictionary, said that he had actually been influenced by Joyce's word in naming the particle,although the influence was subconscious at first.Gell-Mann was thinking of using the pronunciation (kwôrk) for the particle,possibly something he had picked up fromFinnegans Wake, which he "had perused from time to time since it appeared in 1939. . . . The allusion to three quarks seemed perfect" (originally there were only three subatomic quarks).Gell-Mann, however, wanted to pronounce the word with (ô) not (ä), as Joyce seemed to indicate by rhyming words in the vicinity such asMark. Gell-Mann got around that "by supposing that one ingredient of the line ‘Three quarks for Muster Mark’was a cry of ‘Three quarts for Mister . . . ’ heard in H.C. Earwicker's pub.”冲马克王呱叫三声! / 很显然一声狗吠对他还不够 / 很显然他所有的一切都和盛名无关。 这一段出自詹姆斯·乔伊斯的为芬尼根守灵 , 是对马克王进行侮辱谩骂的一首十三行诗中的一部分。马克王是特里斯特拉姆传奇故事中被戴了绿帽子的丈夫。这首诗和随同的叙述中充斥着鸟类的名字和暗示鸟类的词。这首诗是对马克王的粗声抗诉,就象乌鸦的啼叫。所以乔伊斯用了quark 一词, 它来源于标准英语动词quark (意思为“呱呱地叫,乌鸦叫”)和方言中的动词 quawk (意思为“象鸟一样呱呱地叫、尖叫”)。 乔伊斯笔下的quark 一词并不是现在形成的意思: “任何一组假想的亚原子粒子,被认为是物质的基本单位”。这些粒子的提出者——物理学家默里·基尔曼在1978年6月27日写给牛津英语词典 编者的一封私人信件中说, 他给这种粒子命名时确实受到了乔伊斯这个词的影响,虽然这种影响起初只是潜意识的。基尔曼本想用(kwôrk)这个发音来代表这种粒子,可能也是从为芬尼根守灵 一书中汲取出来的。 自从1939年这书出版以来,他曾时常精读…关于三声呱叫的暗示看上去很完满(最初只有三种亚原子夸克)。但是基尔曼想让这个词发音为(o)而不是(a)——乔伊斯将韵押为与Mark 相近的音好象表明该发这个音。 基尔曼认为这行诗中的一部分“对马克王呱叫三声”,实际上是在酒店中听到的“给这位先生来三夸脱酒”叫喊声〔fair〕American folk speech puts Standard English to shame in its wealth of words for describing weather conditions.When the weather goes from fair to cloudy,New Englanders say that it's "breedin' up a storm" (Maine informant in theLinguistic Atlas of New England ). If the weather is clear, however,a New Englander might call itopen. Southernfair off and fair up, meaning "to become clear,” were originally Northeastern terms and were brought to the South as settlement expanded southward and westward.They are now "regionalized to the South,” according to Craig M. Carver, author ofAmerican Regional Dialects. These phrases may be the origin of modern and less regional coinings,such asmild up, used on a television weather forecast: "The Southwest is beginning to mild up just a tad.”美国方言对天气状况的描写因其应有尽有的单词使标准英语黯然失色。当天气由晴转多云时,新英格兰人会说“孕育着一场暴风雨”(新英格兰语言学图册 的缅因消息提供者)。 但如果天气是无云的,新英格兰人也许会说open。 南部的fair off 和 fair up 所表示的放晴, 起源于东北部词语,后被带到南部成为固定用法并向南向西流传。根据克雷格M·卡弗尔,美国地区方言 的作者所说,它们如今已“被南方地区化了”。 这些词组或许正是现代不再具地区性的词句的起源,例如mild up, 用于电视天气预报: “西南将变得暖和一点”〔boughten〕American regional dialects allow freer adjectival use of certain past participles of verbs than does Standard English.Time-honored examples areboughten (Chiefly Northern U.S.) and bought (Chiefly Southern U.S.) to mean "purchased rather than homemade": boughten sugar,a boughten dress,bought bread. The Northern formboughten (as in store boughten ) features the participial ending -en, added to bought, the participial form, probably by analogy with more common participial adjectives such asfrozen. Another development, analogous withhomemade, is evident in bought-made, cited inDARE from a Texas informant. 美国地方方言较标准英语更自由地允许将一些动词过去分词用作形容词。历史较久的例子是boughten (主要在北美)和 bought (主要在南美), 意指“买来的而并非家里制的”: 买来的糖,买来的衣服,买来的面包。 北美形式boughten (如 商场里买的 )特征是有过去分词词尾 -en 加在过去分词形式 bought 的后面, 这可能是参照了一些更常见的过去分词形容词如frozen。 另一种发展,模拟homemade, 显见于 bought-made, 由美国区域英语词典 的得克萨斯资料提供人所引用 |
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