| 单词 | 缘于 |
| 释义 | 〔fair〕The history of the wordfair illustrates how words can weaken in meaning over time. In Old English the ancestor offair, fæger, had senses such as "lovely, beautiful, pleasant, agreeable,” a far cry from our modern sense "mildly good or satisfying.”The Old English senses passed into Middle English,where the wordfair started to take a slight turn in the direction already alluded to. Fair could mean "highly to be approved of, splendid, good,”but it could also be used ironically,as in Chaucer's observation after a horse threw the Cook on the pilgrimage to Canterbury:"that was a fair feat of horsemanship by the Cook.”This ironic use was probably not responsible for the semantic weakening offair, but it shows how a positive word can have its meaning reversed.The weakening offair was most likely caused by "the determined optimism which led to the use of fair . . . rather than direct expression of discontent,”in the words of George H. McKnight.One might add as another cause the desire to avoid hurting other people's feelings.单词fair 的历史表明随岁月的流逝单词的语意变弱。 在古英语中fair，f?ger 本意是“可爱的，漂亮的，愉快的”， 与我们现在的“比较好或满意的”大相径庭。古英语传到中世纪英语时，fair 已开始在引申的方向上有微小的转变。 Fair 可以表达“被高度赞许的，辉煌的，好的，”但也可用作反语，如在往坎特伯雷朝圣的途中马将科克摔下时后，乔尔斯评论道：“那是科克精湛骑术的体现”。这种反语用法也许对fair 语义学上的弱化没有联系， 但它表明了一个褒义的单词可以变得意思完全相反。fair 的弱化很大程度上缘于“坚决的乐观主义导致 fair 的用法改变， 而不是直接表达不满意的意思，”乔治赫·马克奈特如此评论。人们可以再添上其它原因以免伤害别人的感情〔helpmate〕The existence of the two wordshelpmeet and helpmate meaning exactly the same thing is a comedy of errors. God's promise to Adam, in Genesis 2:18 as rendered in the King James version of the Bible (1611), was to give him "an help [helper] meet [fit or suitable] for him.”In 1673 the poet John Dryden used the phrase "help-meet for man,”with a hyphen betweenhelp and meet. This was one step on the way toward the establishment of the phrase "help meet" as an independent word.Another was the use of "help meet"without "for man"to mean a suitable helper,usually a spouse, as Eve had been to Adam.Despite such usages,however, for the most parthelpmeet was not thought of as a word in its own right until the 19th century. Nonetheless the phrase "help meet" probably played a role in the creation of the synonymous compoundhelpmate, from ( help and mate ), first recorded in 1715. Helpmeet 和 helpmate 这两个意义完全相同的词的存在缘于一起错误的喜剧。 据英王詹姆士一世钦定《圣经》英译本(1611年）《创业记》2：18的记载，上帝允诺亚当给他“一个适合他的助手”。1673年，诗人约翰·德莱顿使用了“男人的助手”这个短语，并且在help 和 meet 中间加了一个连字符成为help-meet。 这是短语"help meet"成为一个独立的单词道路上所迈出的第一步。另一步就是单独使用"help meet"，去掉了"for man"这个成分，意思是适合的伙伴，通常指象夏娃之于亚当那样的伴侣。尽管有以上这些用法，但是，总的说来，helpmeet 这个说法直到19世纪才凭借自身的资格成为一个单词。 但不管怎么说，同义合成词helpmate 来源于（ help 加 mate ）的创造过程中（这个词首次记录于1715年），短语"help meet"很可能扮演了一定的角色 |
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