看美网 学英语

看了这么多年网球，总以为那些裁判都是大舌头，发球触网总是喊“LET”，难道不应该是“NET”吗？在MIKE的刨根问底下，GOOGLE一下，这才发现人家不是大舌头，就是LET，那么为什么叫LET呢？这个词的Old Saxon起源是“lettian”，意思是“to hinder”，Middle Dutch的词源是“letten”，Old High German的词源是“to delay”或“to hurt”。网球规则中，如果一发发球触网后落到对方场地，就算“LET”，也就是说可以再发一次，仍算一发，如果二发触网，就算双误。所以LET就是不算重发，这不就是要耽误会工夫嘛。

全素宴

周六请Mike的太极老师和拳友吃午饭。老师Tim是素食者，所以做的全是素菜，几乎把我会做的素菜都做了，下次再请客要黔驴技穷了。

菜单：

菠菜粉丝，芹菜腐竹，皮蛋豆腐，番茄鸡蛋，尖椒土豆丝，苦瓜木耳，蒜末茄丁

第一诫

今天在家看香港电影“第一诫”，警察捉鬼又被鬼上身的故事，警察到一个曾经淹死人的游泳池查案，报案的说经常听到奇怪的声音，结果。。。突然我听到家里有很大的水流声，寻声找过去，是厕所马桶的水箱，掀开水箱盖，正在充水，但是，水箱是满的，而且我根本没用过厕所呀。。。

Football or Soccer?

From: http://hotword.dictionary.com/?p=12

If you’re reading this in the U.S. or Canada, then maybe you love soccer. If you’re reading this pretty much anywhere else, then perhaps you love football.

One person’s idea of a cute habit is responsible for the most popular sport in the world having two names.

One person’s idea took off so wildly that it dictates what millions of people call the game being played at the World Cup right now.

Let’s start in England in the 19th century. Kids played their own versions of football however they felt like it. A bunch of private schools got together to standardize the rules, which of course led to lots of arguing. The arguments gave birth to two games: Rugby football (named after a school called Rugby) and Association football, after the Football Association.

Enter a fellow named Charles Wreford-Brown, one of Association football’s early heroes. Brown was fond of a slang fad called an Oxford-er (like a vintage version of today’s “izzle” craze.) It works like this: you shorten a word and add “-er” on the end. Breakfast becomes “brekker.” Rugby is “rugger.”

Association football was called “footer”, but Brown had a different idea. He took the word Association, chopped off the A, sliced off the –iation from sociation and called it “soccer” instead. Weird, but true. It may not be the most logical name in the history of sports, but his influence is one of the reasons we don’t have footer leagues today. And if we did play footer instead of soccer, what would we call playing footsy?

Since American football (based on rugby) had already taken off by the time Association football became popular in the U.S., soccer stuck. The truth is, however, that soccer wasn’t universally accepted over football in the U.S. for a long time. The governing body for soccer in the U.S. was called the United States Soccer Football Association until 1974.

学无止境与神仙生活

上次翻译《商业意识》一书时，作者简介里说他是“a scholar at Charterhouse”，我最初不明白他到底是在Charterhouse教书还上学。Scholar一词我们最常见的翻译是学者，a learned person，其实它还有学生的意思，尤其指年幼的小学生。我最初拿不定主意他是学者还是学生，主要是因为Charterhouse就是伦敦一寄宿学校，就好像你要是出本书，还好意思在封皮上写“毕业于北师大附中”吗?显然，这位仁兄对自己的母校颇为自豪。

最近在看《The Thoreau You Don't Know》时，又碰到scholar一词，这次用意再明显不过。梭罗曾经和他的哥哥在家乡康科德共同创办了一家学校，有点像私塾的意思。他的教育理念就是，“I would make education a pleasant thing both to the teacher and the scholar. This discipline, which we allow to be the end of life, should not be one in the schoolroom, and another in the street. We should seek to be fellow students with the pupil, and we should learn of, as well as with him, if we would be most helpful to him.”能当他们的学生，真是幸运。

梭罗和他哥哥的学校相当成功。他们经常带着学生到树林里远足散步，他们的课间休息是30分钟，而不是其他学校一般规定的10分钟，他们还主张教室要开窗让新鲜空气进来，这在当时(1830s)是很激进的做法。他们还带学生去参观印第安人的栖息地，去参观当地的企业，印刷厂和枪支店。当梭罗的小船需要上漆时，他让学生们帮忙一起动手。到了晚上，学生们放学后，梭罗和他的哥哥就参加村里的各种舞会、派对。试想一下他们的生活，早上教书，下午在田间树林漫步，晚上party，真是神仙般的生活。

I am the clue-finder, web-cutter, ring-winner, barrel-rider

用英文写作时常常感到词汇匮乏，想不出精确精彩的词。其实很多英文作家的用词很简单，但精妙在造句顺畅。

最近在看“The Thoreau You Don't Know”(你不知道的梭罗) by Robert Sullivan。讲到梭罗出生时的家庭状况时，作者写到，“By the time Thoreau came along, he had a sister, Helen, and a brother, John, and the family money was mostly gone.”只一句话，就把梭罗出生时的家庭成员和经济状况表达得清清楚楚，而且没用一个生僻词，但利用巧妙的押韵让一句简单说明事实的句子读起来像诗歌一样朗朗上口。

Mike最近为我朗读的“The Hobbit”(魔戒前传-哈比人历险记)要接近尾声了，哈比人一行终于找到了巨龙，在巨龙的山洞里，哈比人跟巨龙展开了一段斗智斗勇的对话，巨龙企图从哈比人嘴里得知他与同伴的身份，聪明的哈比人不想说实话，但又不原意冒说谎话被巨龙识破的风险，于是他这样描述了自己是谁，来自哪里。

“I come from under the hill, and the under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen. I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number. I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of bag, but no bag went over me. I and the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ring-winner and Luckwearer, and I am Barrel-rider.”

在这一段话里，哈比人概述了整本书到这为止他所有的历险和传奇的遭遇，巨龙对他的这个回答一头雾水，不过相信读者都知道他说的是什么。而且这一段话也没有用任何生僻的词。不得不为J.R.R. Tolkien的文字功力所折服。

犀利哥

在别人的博客上看到一组名为“相亲”的照片，注意照片里相亲的对象是谁。

Photo from: http://pindao.blogbus.com/sejie/201004085805.html