单词 | 毒箭 |
释义 | 〔arrowroot〕The arrowroot is just one of many plants that the European settlers and explorers discovered in the New World.The Arawak, a people who formerly lived on the Caribbean Islands and continue to inhabit certain regions of Guiana, named this plantaru-aru, meaning "meal of meals,” so called because they thought very highly of the starchy, nutritious meal made from the arrowroot.The plant also had medicinal value because its tubers could be used to draw poison from wounds inflicted by poison arrows.The medicinal application of the roots provided the impetus for English speakers to remakearu-aru into arrowroot, first recorded in English in 1696. Folk etymology—the process by which an unfamiliar element in a word is changed to resemble a more familiar word,often one that is semantically associated with the word being refashioned—has triumphed once again,thus denying us the direct borrowing ofaru-aru and giving us arrowroot instead. 竹芋仅是欧洲探险家和拓荒者在新大陆发现的多种植物中的一种。曾居住在加勒比海各岛,现仍在圭亚那部分地区居住的阿拉瓦克人把这种植物称为aru-aru 意思是“餐中餐”, 这样称呼是因为他们非常看重这种用竹芋粉做成的淀粉状的,非常有营养的食物。这种植物同时还有医疗价值,因为其块茎可用来从毒箭箭伤处把毒吸出来。这种植物的医疗作用促使讲英语的人重新将aru-aru 命名为 arrowroot ,1696年首次在英语中予以记载。 词的通俗变化就是比较陌生的词被比较熟悉的词所替代的过程,常常是被一个语义上与被翻新的词有联系的词。这里,通俗词汇学又一次取得胜利,不允许我们直接借用aru-aru ,而是另给了我们一个 arrowroot 。 |
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