单词 | 看来 |
释义 | 〔crazy〕"To them she is not a brusque crazy, but ‘appropriately passionate’”(Mary McGrory)“在他们看来她并不是一个唐突的疯子,相反她表达了‘适度的热情’”(玛丽·麦格罗里)〔fixate〕"Movies and television seem especially fixated on the troubled Vietnam veteran"(James Hall-Sheehy)“看来电影和电视把焦点特别对准了陷入困境的越军退役军人”(詹姆斯·霍尔—希伊)〔pimpmobile〕A flashy, oversize automobile used by or deemed suitable for use by a pimp.(拉皮条用的)豪华型定制轿车:一种拉皮条的人使用的俗艳、超大型轿车,或看来适合这类人用〔side〕A surface of an object that extends more or less perpendicularly from an observer standing in front:侧面:从站在前方的观测者看来一物体比较垂直或不很垂直的面:〔methinks〕thyncth [it seems] * see tong- thyncth [看来] * 参见 tong- 〔tarnation〕The noun and interjectiontarnation illustrate suffixation, the addition of a suffix to a word.Tarnation and darnation (the latter probably having come first) are both euphemistic forms ofdamnation. Tarnationseems to have been influenced by tarnal, another mild oath derived from (e ) ternal! TheOxford English Dictionary cites late-18th-century examples of tarnation from New England, indicating that it has been part of American speech since colonial days.既是名词又是感叹词的tarnation 阐明了加后缀的构词法, 即将一个后缀加到一个词的末尾。Tarnation 和 darnation (后者可能先出现) 都是damnstion这个词的委婉形式。 Tarnation看来是受了 tarnal 一词的影响, 后者是从(e ) ternal 派生出来的一个较温和的诅咒语。 牛津英语辞典 援引了18世纪后期新英格兰地区居民使用 tarnation 一词的例子, 以此说明自殖民地时期起它就是美国语言的一部分〔glum〕"To a Western eye, [they] seem poorly dressed, ill-groomed, dour and preoccupied" (Peter Lewis).“在西方人看来, 显得似乎衣着寒碜,不修边幅,桀骜不驯” (彼得·刘易斯)。〔resent〕When we read the statement "Should we not be monstrously ingratefull if we did not deeply resent such kindness?” (from theSermons of Isaac Barrow, written before 1677), we may be pardoned for momentarily thinking we are in never-never land.For a time ranging roughly from the last part of the 17th century to the second half of the 18th,the wordresent did refer to gratefulness and appreciation as well as injury and insult. Resent has also been used in other senses that seem strange to us, such as "to feel pain" or "to perceive by smell.”The thread that ties the senses together is the notion of feeling or perceiving.The Old French source of our word,resentir, "to feel strongly,” is made up of the prefix re-, acting in this case as an intensive, and sentir, "to feel or perceive.” There is much that one can feel,but at least for now this word has narrowed its focus to a feeling of indignation.当我们读到“假如我们对这种仁慈不深表感激,我们就应该极度地忘恩负义吗”(选自伊萨克·巴罗的启示 ,写于1677年以前)这一叙述时, 我们瞬间地想到我们处于人烟稀少的边远地区就可以得到原谅了。在大致从17世纪后期到18世纪下半期这段时间内,resent 一词确实意指感激和赏识,同时又可以指伤害和侮辱。 Resent 还可以用于在我们看来很古怪的其它意义上, 如“感到痛楚”或“通过气味感知”等。把这些意义联结在一起的线是感觉或感知的概念。该词意为“强烈地感觉”的古法语语源resentir 是由用于加强语气的前缀 re- 以及意为“感觉或感知”的 sentir, 构成的。 可以感觉到的东西很多,但至少现在这个词的重点用法已被集中于愤怒的感觉〔shyster〕The origin ofshyster was not known for certain until recently. According to one etymology,shyster comes from the surname of one Scheuster, a disreputable and almost certainly nonexistent mid-19th-century attorney.In his bookHuman Words, a collection of words formed from the names of people, Robert Hendrickson says that Dr. Henry Bosley Woolf and others "list the New York advocate as a possible source.”But the actual etymology, according to Gerald L. Cohen, a student of the word,is less flattering.According to this etymology,the word is derived from the German termscheisser, meaning literally "one who defecates,”from the verbscheissen, "to defecate,” with the English suffix-ster, "one who does,” substituted for the German suffix -er, meaning the same thing. Sheisser, which is chiefly a pejorative term, is the German equivalent of our English termsbastard and son of a bitch. Sheisser is generally thought to have been borrowed directly into English as the word shicer, which, among other things, is an Australian English term for an unproductive mine or claim,a sense that is also recorded for the wordshyster. shyster 一词的来源直到最近才能较确切地弄清楚。 根据词源,shyster 来自一个叫 Scheuster 的人的姓, 他是一位声名狼籍而且很可能并不存在的19世纪中期的律师。罗伯特·亨德里克森在他的人类词汇 (一本由人名组成的词汇集)一书中说, 亨利·博斯利·任尔夫博士和其他的人“将纽约的鼓吹者列为一种可能的出处”。但是据加兰德·L·科恩——一位研究词汇的学生看来,这个词的真正词源更令人不快。根据这种词源,这个词来自德语Scheisser, 字面意义为“大便的人”,是从动词scheissen “排泄”而来, 用一英语词缀-ster (做…的人)代替了表相同意义的德语词缀 -er 。 Sheisser 主要用作贬蔑语, 在德语中相当于我们英语中bastard 及 son of a bitch。 Sheisser一般被认为是直接借入英语作为 Schicer 一词, 在澳式英语中指不再产出的矿山或没有结果的要求,这一意义也被记录在Shyster 这个词中 〔miracle〕An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God:圣迹,奇迹:一个自然法则看来不能解释的事件,因而常被认为来自超自然或上帝所为:〔patronage〕It seems our little establishment has finally been deemed worthy of the bank's patronage.看来银行终于认为值得资助我们这种小机构〔Surratt〕American alleged conspirator in Abraham Lincoln's assassination. She was convicted as a conspirator and executed along with three others, although it now appears that she knew nothing about the plot to kill the President.苏拉特,玛丽·尤金尼娅·詹金斯:(1820?-1865) 被指控为阿拉伯罕·林肯谋杀案同谋的美国人,她被作为同谋犯与其他三个人一道被定罪并处决,但现在看来她对杀害总统的阴谋一无所知〔raunchy〕“[He] uses language so aggressively raunchy that he seems to be insisting his choice of vocabulary, at least, is no sin" (Wall Street Journal)“[他] 使用的语言都是令人震惊的下流,看来他至少并不认为自己的用词是什么罪恶” (华尔街期刊)〔benchmark〕"Inflation . . . is a great distorter of seemingly fixed economic ideas and benchmarks"(Benjamin M. Friedman)See Synonyms at standard “通货膨胀…是看来稳定的经济观念和基准的严重误解”(本杰明M.弗里德曼) 参见 standard〔boycott〕Charles C. Boycott seems to have been forced by his strong sense of duty into becoming a household word.Boycott was the estate agent of the Earl of Erne in County Mayo, Ireland.The earl was one of the absentee landowners who as a group held most of the land in Ireland.Boycott was chosen in the fall of 1880 to be the test case for a new policy advocated by Charles Parnell, an Irish politician who wanted land reform.Any landlord who would not charge lower rents or any tenant who took over the farm of an evicted tenant would be given the complete cold shoulder by Parnell's supporters.Boycott, a former British soldier, refused to charge lower rents and ejected his tenants.At this point members of Parnell's Irish Land League stepped in,and Boycott and his family found themselves isolated—without servants, farmhands, service in stores, or mail delivery.Boycott's name was quickly adopted as the term for this treatment,not just in English but in other languages such as French, Dutch, German, and Russian.查理斯·C·博伊考特看来是因为其强烈的责任感而成为一个家喻户晓的词。博伊考特是爱尔兰麦奥县俄内伯爵的房地产经纪人。俄内是占有爱尔兰大部分土地的不在地主集团中的一员。博伊考特于1880年秋季被选为一项新政策的试点,此项政策是由一个企图进行土地改革的爱尔兰政治家──查理斯·帕内尔提出的。那些不愿降低地租的地主或接管被驱逐佃户土地的佃农都被帕内尔的支持者疏远。作为原英军士兵的博伊考特,拒绝收取低地租并且驱逐佃户。此时帕内尔爱尔兰土地联盟成员插手了,博伊考特及其家人发现他们被孤立了──没有仆人,农业工人,得不到商店服务,也没有人送信。博伊考特的名字很快就被用作这种对待方法的专有名词,不仅用于在英语中,而且也用于如法语、荷兰语、德语和俄语的其他语言中〔personify〕"Stalin now personified bolshevism in the eyes of the world"(A.J.P. Taylor)“在整个世界看来,现在斯大林象征着布尔什维克主义”(A.J.P.泰勒)〔inkling〕One of the more fascinating journeys in the histories of words is the one that linksnest and inkling. We begin this journey with the Indo-European rootnizdo-, which by way of Germanic.nist- will give us nest but also leads to Latinnīdus, "nest.” From Latinnīdus may come Old French (and modern French) niche, meaning "niche.” It is possible that in Old French a variant form existed that was borrowed into Middle English asnik, meaning "a notch, tally.” This word seems related to the Middle English wordnikken, which may mean "to mark a text for correction,”andnikking, "a hint, slight indication,” or possibly "a whisper, mention.” The wordnikking appears only once, in a Middle English text composed around 1400, as does the wordningkiling, found in another copy of the same text. It is possible thatningkiling is from nikking. Furthermore, it is probable that people divideda ninkling incorrectly and got an inkling, just as they did witha napron, getting an apron. If all this has indeed happened,inkling has come a long way from the nest. 在单词的演变史中,从nest 到 inkling 是一个有趣的过程。 我们从印欧语系词根nizdo- 开始, 通过日耳曼语的nist- 变为我们的 nest , 也衍生出拉丁语的nidus ,“巢”之意。 从拉丁语的nidus 有了古法语(和现代法语)中的 niche ,表示“壁龛”。 有可能在法语中有一个变体是从中古英语的nik (刻痕,计分)变化而来。 这个词看来与中古英语中的nikken 一词有关, 它的意思是“为改正一篇文字而做记号”,也与nikking 有关,意为“暗示,轻微指示”或也可能是“低声说话,提及”之意。 在一篇1400年左右所作的中古英语文章中,hikking 只出现了一次, 在同样内容的另一份版本中ningkiling 也只出现了一次。 所以有可能ninkiling 是由 nikking 变化而来。 此外,很有可能人们错误地将a ninkling 分开从而得到 an inkling , 就象人们错误地处理a napron 从而得到 an apron 一样。 如果所有这些真的发生了,inkling 一词从其巢穴走了一条长长的演变之路 〔appear〕They will be late, as it appears.看来他们可能要迟到〔scold〕A scold is no poet and a scolding is not poetry, at least to the one being scolded,but it seems that the wordscold has a poetic background. It is probable thatscold, which is first recorded in Middle English in a work probably composed around 1150, has a Scandinavian source that is related to the Old Icelandic wordskāld, "poet.” Middle Englishscolde may in fact mean "a minstrel,” but of that we are not sure.However, its Middle English meanings, "a ribald, abusive person" and "a shrewish, chiding woman,”may be related toskāld, as shown by the senses of some of the Old Icelandic words derived fromskāld. Old Icelandicskāldskapr, for example, meant "poetry" in a good sense but also "a libel in verse,” whileskāld-stöng meant "a pole with imprecations or charms scratched on it.” It would seem that libelous, cursing verse was a noted part of at least some poets' productions and that this association with poets passed firmly along with the Scandinavian borrowing into English.骂人者不是诗人,谩骂不是诗,至少对被骂的人来说是这样的,但是scold 这个词似乎有着诗的背景。 Scold 这个词在中世纪英语中第一次被记录在一部大约于1150年创作的作品中,它有可能源于斯堪的纳维亚语, 与skald 这个在冰岛古语中表示“诗人”的词有关。 中世纪英语中的scolde 实际上可能意为“吟游诗人”, 但对此没有肯定说法。然而,它在中世纪英语中的意思是“说脏话、辱骂人的人”和“悍泼的、好骂人的女人”,可能与skald 有关, 如一些起源于skald 的冰岛古词语的意思显示的那样。 例如,古冰岛语中的skaldskapr 其褒义为“诗”,但也有“诽谤性的诗”的意思, 而skald-stong 意思是“刻有诅咒或符咒的杆子”。 看来,诽谤、辱骂性的诗歌至少是一些诗人作品突出的部分并与诗人这种联系稳步地随斯堪的纳维亚语被借入英语中〔anxious〕Anxious has a long history of use roughly as a synonym for eager, but many would prefer that the distinction between the two words be maintained and thatanxious be used only when its subject is worried or uneasy about the anticipated event. In the traditional view, one may sayWe are anxious to see the strike settled soon but notWe are anxious to see the new show of British sculpture at the museum. Fifty-two percent of the Usage Panel rejectsanxious in the latter sentence. But general adoption ofanxious to mean "eager" is understandable, at least in colloquial discourse,since it provides a means of adding emotional urgency to an assertion,in its implication that the subject's desire for a certain outcome is so strong that frustration of that desire will lead to unhappiness.Note, in this connection, the analogous use of sentences such asI'm dying to see your new baby in informal style. Anxious 在很长一段时间以来,一直大致作为 eager 的同义词来用, 但很多人喜欢保留这两个词之间的区别,即只有当主体对预测事件忧虑不安时才用anxious 。 在传统观点看来,可以说我们渴望看到罢工问题很快解决 , 但不能说我们渴望在博物馆里见到新的英国雕塑展览。 52%的用法使用小组成员反对anxious 在后一个句子中的用法。 但通常用anxious 来表示"eager"是可以理解的, 至少在口语中是这样,既然它加强了某一主张在感情上的迫切性,它隐喻的一层意思就是,主体对某一特定结果的愿望是如此强烈,以至于这种欲望受挫就会导致不愉快。注意与此有关的类似句子如我很渴望见到你们新出生的孩子 也是非正式的 〔ormolu〕Any of several copper and zinc or tin alloys resembling gold in appearance and used to ornament furniture, moldings, architectural details, and jewelry.铜锌锡合金:外表看来象金的、由铜、锌或锡组成的合金,用于装饰家具、模具、建筑配件和珠宝〔plateau〕"The tension seemed to grow by degrees, then it plateaued"(Tom Clancy)“压力看来逐级增加,然后它达到稳定水平”(汤姆·克兰西)〔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 〔themed〕Their disapproval may stem from the inference that this adjectival participle must come from a verb "to theme,” rather than from the nountheme (as left-handed comes from the noun hand ). Although many common verbs, such as telephone, began their lives as nouns, there is often very strong resistance when a noun first begins to be used as a verb. There are indeed instances of theme being used as a verb, but they are relatively rare—a fact that seems to suit the Usage Panel. Ninety-two percent reject the sentence 他们不赞同的理由或许源自于此形容词themed应该自动词"to theme(设计主题)”而来,而不是从名词theme 而来(如 left-handed 源自名词 hand )。虽然许多普通动词原本是名词,如 telephone ,但当名词开始当动词用时常会引起激烈反对。事实上像 theme 这样用作动词的例子相对较少——看来它较迎合用法专家小组。92%的小组成员反对此句型 〔gaffe〕"The excursion had in his eyes been a monstrous gaffe, a breach of sensibility and good taste"(Mary McCarthy)“那次谈话中的离题在他看来太出丑了,简直就是失去理智后的胡言乱语,毫无高尚趣味可言”(玛丽·麦卡锡)〔hooker〕In hisPersonal Memoirs Ulysses S. Grant described Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker as "a dangerous man . . . not subordinate to his superiors.” Hooker had his faults, of course.He may indeed have been insubordinate;undoubtedly he was an erratic leader.But there is one thing of which he is often accused that "Fighting Joe" Hooker certainly did not do:he did not give his name to prostitutes.According to a popular story,the men under Hooker's command during the Civil War were a particularly wild bunch.When his troops were on leave,we are told, they spent much of their time in brothels.For this reason, as the story goes,prostitutes came to be known ashookers. It is not difficult to understand how such a theory might have originated.The major general's name differs from the wordhooker only in the capital letter that begins it. And it is true that Hooker's men were at times ill-disciplined (although it seems that liquor, not women, was the main source of their difficulties with the provost marshal).However attractive this theory may be,it cannot be true.The wordhooker, with the sense "prostitute,” is in fact older than the Civil War. It appeared in the second edition (although not in the first) of John Russell Bartlett'sDictionary of Americanisms, published in 1859.Bartlett definedhooker as "a strumpet, a sailor's trull.” He also said that the word was derived from Corlear's Hook,a district in New York City,but this was only a guess.There is no evidence that the term originated in New York.Norman Ellsworth Eliason has traced this use ofhooker back to 1845 in North Carolina. He reported the usage inTarheel Talk; an Historical Study of the English Language in North Carolina to 1860, published in 1956. The fact that we have no earlier written evidence does not mean thathooker was never used to mean "prostitute" before 1845. The history ofhooker is, quite simply, murky; we do not know when or where it was first used,but we can be very certain that it did not begin with Joseph Hooker.Also, we have no firm evidence that it came from Corlear's Hook.Scholarly evidence or lack thereof notwithstanding,the late Bruce Catton, the Civil War historian, did not go so far as to exonerate completely the Union general.Although "the term ‘hooker’ did not originate during the Civil War,”wrote Catton, "it certainly became popular then.During these war years, Washington developed a large [red-light district] somewhere south of Constitution Avenue.This became known as Hooker's Division in tribute to the proclivities of General Joseph Hookerand the name has stuck ever since.”If the termhooker was derived neither from Joseph Hooker nor from Corlear's Hook, what is its derivation?It is most likely that thishooker is, etymologically, simply "one who hooks.” The term portrays a prostitute as a person who hooks, or snares, clients.尤利西斯·S·格兰特在他的个人回忆录 中把陆军少将约瑟夫·胡克描写成“一个危险人物…从不服从于他的顶头上司”。 胡克当然有他的缺点。他也许曾是一个难以屈服的人;但他无疑是一个怪癖的军官。但是“好战的乔”,胡克却因为一件他肯定没有干过的事情而屡遭指责;他从不对妓女透露他的姓名。根据一个流行故事,内战中胡克的手下有一伙特别狂野的人们。当他的队伍即将离开时,据说他们总在妓院里消磨时日。故事还说正因为如此,妓女开始被叫做hookers。 我们不难理解这样一个故事的起源的推测。这个将军的名字和hooker 只差开头的一个大写字母。 而且胡克的手下在当时确实纪律涣散(尽管看来是酒而非女人才导致了他们与宪兵司令之间的矛盾)。不管这个故事多么诱人,它不可能是真实的。事实上hooker 一词作为“妓女”的意思比内战的历史还要早。 它出现于约翰·罗素·巴特利特编纂的美国俗语词典 的第二版(尽管第一版中没有), 出版于1859年。巴特利特把hooker 定义为“一个妓女,水手的妓女”。 他还说这个词来源于科利尔的胡克,纽约市的一个地区,但这只是一个猜想。没有证据证明这一说法源于纽约。诺曼·爱尔斯华斯·艾利森把hooker 的用法追溯到1845年的北卡罗来纳州。 他在1956年出版的北卡罗来纳州闲话; 1860年前北卡罗来纳英语历史研究 中说明了这一用法。 缺乏早期书面证据这一事实并不意味着在1845年之前hooker 没有被用作“妓女”一义。 很简单,hooker 的历史隐晦难知; 我们不知道它在何时何地被首次使用,但我们可以肯定它并不始于约瑟夫·胡克。而且我们没有确凿证据证明它来源于科利尔的胡克。不管有无学术性的证据,已故的内战历史学家布鲁斯·卡通并没有做到为联邦将军彻底开脱的地步。尽管“‘hooker’这一词语并不是来源于内战,”卡通写道,“在那之后它肯定流行了起来。在战争年代,华盛顿在宪法大街南部某个地方发展了很大的[红灯区]。人们把这里称作胡克的辖区,作为对约瑟夫·胡克将军怪癖的献礼,这个名字从此便生根发芽”。如果hooker 这一词语既不是源于约瑟夫·胡克也不来自于科利尔的胡克, 那么它的词源究竟是什么呢?从词源学上来说hooker 很有可能仅仅是“引…上钩的人”。 这一词语把妓女描绘成一个勾引或引诱客人的人 |
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