| 单词 | 观察报 |
| 释义 | 〔gerrymander〕"An official statement of the returns of voters for senators give[s] twenty nine friends of peace, and eleven gerrymanders.”So reported the May 12, 1813, edition of theMassachusetts Spy. A gerrymander sounds like a strange political beast,which in fact it is, considered from a historical perspective.This beast was named by combining the wordsalamander, "a small lizardlike amphibian,” with the last name of Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusetts— a state noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna.Gerry (whose name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hardg, though gerrymander is now commonly pronounced with a soft g ) was immortalized in this way because an election district created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a salamander.According to one version of howgerrymander was coined, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart,who noticed it on a map hanging in a newspaper editor's office.Stuart decorated the map with a head, wings, and clawsand then said to the editor, "That will do for a salamander!”"Gerrymander!” came the reply.A new political beast was created then and there.The word is first recorded in April 1812 with respect to the creature or its caricature,but it soon came to mean not only "the action of shaping a district to gain political advantage"but also "any representative elected from such a district by that method.”Within the same yeargerrymander was also recorded as a verb. “一份答复参议员选举人的官方声明宣布了二十九个和平伙伴和十一个不公正划分的选区。”在1813年3月12日的一期马萨诸塞州观察报 上有如上报导。 一个不公正划分选区听起来象是一个奇怪的政治怪兽，事实上它是来自历史上的观点。这个怪兽是由两个词合并而命名的，即salamander “一种蜥蜴状的两栖动物，”及马萨诸塞州州长埃尔布里奇·格里的姓。 而马萨诸萨州以其多变的、通常多姿多彩的政治动物群而闻名。格里（他的名字碰巧发重音g， 尽管 gerrymander 现在普遍发轻音 g， ）以此种方式而垂名史册， 因为1812年由他所在党成员组建的选举区就象一只蝾螈。根据一种gerrymander 如何被创造的观点， 该区的形状吸引了一位画家基尔伯特·斯图亚特，他在一家报纸的主编办公室里挂在墙上的地图中发现了它。斯图尔特又画上头、翅膀和爪子，然后对主编说，“那就象只蝾螈了！”"Gerrymander！”主编回答道。此时此地一个新的政治怪兽产生了。这个词于1812年4月首次被记录是在谈到这种牲畜或讽刺的画中，但很快，它就不仅意味“为赢得政治优势的改变区划的行动”，而且有“用此种方法选出的任何代表”的意思。同年gerrymander 也被作为一个动词而记载下来 |
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