ozimex999

At one fell swoop

Meaning:

Suddenly; in a single action.

突發

Origin

This is one of those phrases that we may have picked up early in our learning of the language and probably worked out its meaning from the context we heard it in, without any clear understanding of what each word meant. Most native English speakers could say what it means but, if we look at it out of context, it doesn't appear to make a great deal of sense. That lack of understanding of the words in the phrase is undoubtedly the reason that this is often misspelled - 'at one fail swoop' (or sometimes, stoop).
So, what's that 'fell'? We use the word in a variety of ways: to chop, as in fell a tree; a moorland or mountain, like those in the northern UK; the past tense of fall, as 'he fell over'. None of those seem to make sense in this phrase and indeed the 'fell' here is none of those. It's an old word, in use by the 13th century, that's now fallen out of use apart from in this phrase and as the common root of the term 'felon'. The Oxford English Dictionary defines fell as meaning 'fierce, savage; cruel, ruthless; dreadful, terrible', which is pretty unambiguous.
Shakespeare either coined the phrase, or gave it circulation, in Macbeth, 1605:

MACDUFF: [on hearing that his family and servants have all been killed]

All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

The kite referred to is a hunting bird, like the Red Kite, which was common in England in Tudor times and is now making a welcome return after near extinction in the 20th century. The swoop (or stoop as is now said) is the rapid descent made by the bird when capturing prey.
Shakespeare used the imagery of a hunting bird's 'fell swoop' to indicate the ruthless and deadly attack by Macbeth's agents.
In the intervening years we have rather lost the original meaning and use it now to convey suddenness rather than savagery.

ozimex999

Beck and call

Meaning :

To be at someone's beck and call is to be entirely subservient to them; to be responsive to their slightest request.

唯命是從

Origin:

'Call' is used here with its usual meaning. 'Beck' is more interesting. The word, although current in English since the 14th century, isn't one that is found outside the phrase 'beck and call' these days. It is merely a shortened form of 'beckon', which we do still know well and understand to mean 'to signal silently, by a nod or motion of the hand or finger, indicating a request or command'.
If the term 'beck and call' had originated prior to the 14th century we we would presumably now say 'beckon and call'. It didn't though and the first recorded use of 'beck and call' in print is in McLaren's Sermons, 1875:

"Christ's love is not at the beck and call of our fluctuating affections."

That is straightforward enough. What brings the phrase to the attention of etymologists is the confusion that some people have between it and 'beckon call'. This supposed phrase is a simple mishearing of 'beck and call'. The mistake comes about because no one uses 'beck' any longer, whereas 'beckon' is commonplace.
'Beckon call' could be said not to be a phrase in English at all, but it is gaining some ground nevertheless. At present (January 2007) Google finds 28,000 hits for 'beckon call' and 474,000 for 'beck and call'.
The misspelling began in the USA in the early 20th century. For example, this early citation from The Modesto News-Herald, May 1929:

A crowd of several hundred people heard a stirring address by B. W. Gearhart, Fresno attorney and American Legion official. "Down through the history of American wars, from the Revolutionary to the recent World conflict." the speaker declared, "America always has had at its beckon call men who would give their all for their country that people might enjoy peace and freedom.

The rogue phrase still appears in print in newspapers. Here's a recent example from the London Daily Mirror, by Phil Differ and Jonathan Watson:

"He [football manager Dick Advocaat] told me what he was particularly looking forward to when he comes to Scotland and that's having the entire Scottish press at his beckon call and I promised he won't be disappointed."

Just because 'beckon call' is based on a mishearing that doesn't mean it won't one day become accepted as proper English. Other phrases, like ' beg the question' for instance are routinely used incorrectly by so many people that the incorrect usage has now become the standard. Let's hope 'beckon call' dies a natural death, not only because it is essentially just a spelling mistake but because its adoption would signal the last gasp of the enjoyable little word 'beck'.

marsma

This topic is really good, we can learn many here.

ozimex999

原帖由 marsma 于 2007-12-4 09:42 PM 发表
This topic is really good, we can learn many here.

Thank you very much.

ozimex999

You are what you eat

Meaning:

The notion that to be fit and healthy you need to eat good food.

以形补形

Origin
This phrase has come to us via quite a tortuous route. Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote, in Physiologie du Gout, ou Meditations de Gastronomie Transcendante, 1826:

"Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." [Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are].

In an essay entitled Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism, 1863/4, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach wrote:

"Der Mensch ist, was er ißt."

That translates into English as 'man is what he eats'.
Neither Brillat-Savarin or Feuerbach meant their quotations to be taken literally. They were stating that that the food one eats has a bearing on what one's state of mind and health.
The actual phrase didn't emerge in English until some time later. In the 1920s and 30s, the nutritionist Victor Lindlahr, who was a strong believer in the idea that food controls health, developed the Catabolic Diet. That view gained some adherents at the time and the earliest known printed example is from an advert for beef in a 1923 edition of the Bridgeport Telegraph, for 'United Meet [sic] Markets':

"Ninety per cent of the diseases known to man are caused by cheap foodstuffs. You are what you eat."

In 1942, Lindlahr published You Are What You Eat: how to win and keep health with diet. That seems to be the vehicle that took the phrase into the public consciousness. Lindlahr is likely to have also used the term in his radio talks in the late 1930s (now lost unfortunately), which would also have reached a large audience.
The phrase got a new lease of life in the 1960s hippy era. The food of choice of the champions of this notion was macrobiotic wholefood and the phrase was adopted by them as a slogan for healthy eating. The belief in the diet in some quarters was so strong that when Adelle Davis, a leading spokesperson for the organic food movement, contracted the cancer that later killed her, she attributed the illness to the junk food she had eaten at college.
Some commentators have suggested that the idea is from much earlier and that it has a religious rather than dietary basis. Roman Catholics believe that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are changed into the body and blood of Jesus (Transubstantiation).
Is the phrase Catholic rather than catabolic?
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1549:

We offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.

Transubstantiation certainly links food and the body, but there doesn't appear to be a clear link between the belief and the phrase. It's safe to assume the origin is more supper than supplication.

ozimex999

At sixes and sevens

Meaning

A state of total confusion and disorder, or of disagreement between parties.

举棋不定

Origin

The derivation of this phrase is rather difficult to trace, not least because it has changed in both form and meaning over the nine centuries or so that it has been in use. The phrase was originally to set on six and seven and is thought to have derived in the 14th century from the game of dice. The meaning then was to carelessly risk one's entire fortune. The earliest citation in print is Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, 1374:

"Lat nat this wrechched wo thyn herte gnawe, But manly set the world on sexe and seuene."

Six and seven is probably a corruption of cinque and sice, which is the French for the numerals five and six. Some may feel that this is a step too far, and the theory does set the folk-etymology antennae twitching. The OED supports the idea though, which will be good enough authority for most people.

If things had stayed that way the origin of the phrase would be fairly cut and dried and there would be little more to say. As we know though, it is now given as at sixes and sevens, having mutated via at six and seven, and the current meaning refers to a state of confusion, disorder or disagreement, not one of risk.

There's no question of these different versions arising independently, the movement from one to another was gradual and they overlap each other in time. The first appearance in print of at six and seven is in 1535 and the last citation of on six and seven in 1601. The first appearance of at sixes and sevens was in 1670, in Leti's Il cardinalismo di Santa Chiesa, translated, or as the subtitle of the work helpfully notes, 'faithfully Englished' by G. H., 1670:

"They leave things at sixes and sevens."

There are two other stories that contend for the honour of being the source of this phrase (or one of the versions of it at least). One is the biblical text - Job 5:19 (King James Version):

"He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee."

Other than being old and including the numbers six and seven, this doesn't seem to make a very strong claim. Chaucer would though have been familiar with earlier versions of this Bible story in Latin.

The other is an appealing tale. The mediaeval Livery Companies that were established in London include The Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors (Tailors) and The Worshipful Company of Skinners (Fur Traders). The precedence of the companies was set in 1515, but these two companies disputed their positions and a compromise was agreed by which they exchange sixth and seventh place each year, at Easter.

Given that the Chaucer quotation is earlier, the Livery Company story can't be the source of set on six and seven. It is quite possible though that, having that existing phrase, the coincidence of the dispute being between the sixth and seventh places caused the migration in meaning. If that is in fact what happened then it could be argued that this is how the present day phrase originated.

[ 本帖最后由 ozimex999 于 2008-10-14 07:34 AM 编辑 ]

ozimex999

Strait and narrow

Meaning

A conventional and law-abiding course.
正常途径，合法途径

Origin

'Straight' is a much more frequently used word than 'strait' these days and so the most common question about this phrase concerns the spelling - should it be 'strait and narrow' or 'straight and narrow'? Well, that depends on just how pedantic you want to be. The source of the expression is the Bible, specifically Matthew 7:13/14. The King James' Version gives these verses as:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

That clearly opts for 'strait' rather than 'straight', as it calls on a now rather archaic meaning of strait, that is, 'a route or channel, so narrow as to make passage difficult'. This is still found in the names of various sea routes, e.g. the Straits of Dover. Such a nautical strait was defined in the 1867 version of Admiral Smyth's Sailor's Word-book as:

"A passage connecting one part of a sea with another."

Smyth also offered the opinion that strait "is often written in the plural, but without competent reason".

The 'confined and restricted' meaning of strait still also lingers on in straitjacket, dire straits, strait-laced and straitened circumstances. All of these are frequently spelled with 'straight' rather than 'strait'. These spellings, although technically incorrect, are now widely accepted and only 'dire straights' comes in for any sustained criticism.
The use of 'straight' is quite understandable, certainly in 'straight and narrow'. After all, it means 'direct and reliable', as in the phrase ' asstraight as a die'and the imagery of a direct and unwavering route to salvation would have been attractive to Christian believers in the 17th century, when that version of the spelling first appeared. It was included in an 1827 publication of A Journal of George Fox, Volume 1, which claims to be a facsimile reprint of the 1694 original journal. The earliest definitive documentation that I can find comes from a few years later, in The Critical Works of Monsieur Rapin, 1706:

"The soul of the common people seems too straight and narrow to be wrought upon by any Part of Eloquence."

This version of the phrase is old enough and close enough in date to the earliest example of 'strait and narrow' that I can find in print as to match it in status. That example is in A Vindication of the Government in Scotland: During the Reign of King Charles II, 1712:

"Strait and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life."

'Straight and narrow' is now the more common spelling and you will be in good company if you opt to use it, even though 'strait and narrow' might be a better choice if you want to get high marks in that English language test.

ozimex999

Auld lang syne

Meaning

The Anglicized version of 'auld lang syne', which means old long-since or old long-ago.
昔日(美好)

Origin

The phrase has been a commonplace in Scots for centuries and isn't far removed from the English 'once upon a time'. Of course, the best-known use of the phrase is Robert Burns' poem Auld lang syne, the words of which are sung in English-speaking countries around the world each New Year's Eve, to a tune that Burns said he transcribed from an old man's singing of it.

        Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
        and never brought to mind?
        Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
        and auld lang syne?

        Chorus:
        For auld lang syne, my dear,
        for auld lang syne,
        we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
        for auld lang syne.

        And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp!
        And surely I’ll be mine!
        And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
        for auld lang syne.

        We twa hae run about the braes,
        and pou’d the gowans fine;
        But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
        sin’ auld lang syne.

        We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
        frae morning sun till dine;
        But seas between us braid hae roar’d
        sin’ auld lang syne.

        And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
        And gies a hand o’ thine!
        And we’ll tak a right gude-willie-waught,
        for auld lang syne.

    Burns' version builds on earlier works. Poems and songs with somewhat similar text have been found dating back as far as anonymous ballad in the Bannatyne Manuscript of 1568. Another version, the first that contains a form of the 'auld lang syne' phrase, is attributed to the courtly poet Sir Robert Ayton (1570-1638).

        Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
        And never thought upon,
        The flames of love extinguished,
        And freely past and gone?
        Is thy kind heart now grown so cold
        In that loving breast of thine,
        That thou canst never once reflect
        On old-long-syne

[ 本帖最后由 ozimex999 于 2008-12-4 07:38 AM 编辑 ]

ozimex999

A piece of the action

Meaning

A share in an activity, or in its profits.

分享(利益或活動)

Origin

'A piece of the action' has an unambiguously American flavour. It brings to mind images of gangster movies with Jimmy Cagney and the like demanding 'hey, gimme a pieca da action'. When the Star Trek franchise opted for a mobster themed episode in 1968 they called it 'A Piece of the Action'. It isn't essentially a US phrase though and tracing its genesis takes us well outside the USA and into a history of finance.

In the early 1600s, the Dutch came upon an interesting trading innovation - the company. Until then, the spice trade had been profitable but small scale, with spices being brought back from 'the Indies' (broadly what we now call Asia) along the tortuous Spice Road on pack horses. The high price of spices encouraged entrepreneurs to build ships to bring the spices back in larger quantities. There was big money to be made, but the large capital cost of building a fleet and the threat of loss from pirates made it too risky a venture for an individual investor; so, in 1602, they formed a company - the Dutch East India Company.

Dutch citizens were invited to invest in the company, which had been given exclusive trading rights to half the world and tax-free status back home. Profits were huge and the clamour to invest was intense. Dirck Bas Jacobsz, one of the company's founders, was instrumental in managing the joint ownership by offering what were then called in Dutch 'acties' or, in English, 'actions'. These were certificates that promised a share in any future profits of the company and what, not unnaturally, came later to be called share certificates. These shares were often purchased by groups rather than individuals. What each of these good citizens had bought was literally 'a piece of the action'.

The term 'action', which continued to be used in that context well into the 19th century, was first recorded in English in John Evelyn's Diary, published between 1641 and 1706:

"African Actions fell to £30, and the India to £80."

'A piece of the action' is certainly a 20th century American phrase. Despite its 1930s mobster overtones, the first use of it that I can find is in the 1957 film Monkey on My Back:

"You want a piece of my action, Sam?"

The 'action' in the phrase means 'a share in an activity; an opportunity'. It is doubtful that whoever coined it in 1950s America knew the history of the Dutch East Indies Company but, knowingly or not, it was the Dutch 'acties' that were the source of that meaning of 'action'.

‏

ozimex999

Baby blues

Meaning

Feelings of depression or anxiety, experienced by some mothers following childbirth.

產後抑鬱

Origin

Had anyone mentioned 'baby blues' prior to WWII they would have been thought to have been talking about colour - specifically the colour of someone's eyes. Most babies are born with blue eyes due to a lack of the melanin pigment until sometime after birth. The use of the term 'baby blues' to mean eyes is a natural development, which came about in the USA in the early 20th century. For example, this from the American author Rex Ellingwood Beach's novel Winds of Chance, 1918:

    "Fix your baby blues on the little ball and watch me close."

In the 1940s 'baby blues' began to be used with the meaning we now usually give it, i.e. post-natal depression.

In his best-selling baby care book Expectant Motherhood (1940), Nicholson J. Eastman wrote:

    "Most common among such reactions, perhaps, is what is colloquially called the 'Baby Blues'."

Interestingly, in a later 1960s edition of the book Eastman suggested that expectant mothers should limit themselves to no more than ten cigarettes per day. How times change.

I have found an earlier mention of 'baby blues' in a 1909 edition of The Syracuse Herald:

    "There are various kinds of blues - navy blues, afflicting those who view Captain Hobson with alarm; baby blues, following the second pair of twins, etc."

This is a jocular piece which lists various plays on the word blues. I don't think it can be viewed as an early citation of the 'baby blues' phrase with its current meaning, more a coincidence.

ozimex999

Baby boomer

Meaning

A person born during the temporary peak in the birth-rate that occurred several countries following WWII, notably the USA and the UK.

美国二次大战后生育高峰出生的人

Origin

A 'baby boom' is any temporary increase in the birth-rate and that term was in use some time before WWII. A 'baby boom' was reported in various newspapers in England in the 1920s. For example, this piece, reprinted in The Coshocton Tribune, April 1920:

There is a 'baby boom' in London. Births during the first six months of this year have broken all records.

'The Baby Boom' - as opposed to 'a baby boom', refers to the increase in population in the countries that were victorious in WWII. The period is generally regarded as beginning in 1946 and ending in the mid-1960s.

There are citations of the term being used in the USA prior to or very early in WWII. At first sight these tend to contradict the view that it referred to the increase in the birth-rate due to the war. Logic would suggest that any baby boom couldn't begin until at least nine months after war had become inevitable and the USA had declared itself neutral in 1939. Those 1939/40 references to a 'baby boom' don't relate to a boom in the number of babies though, but to a small boom in the stock market. This growth in the economy caused by an upsurge in manufacturing caused by increased trade with Europe due to WWII. This 'baby boom' was widely reported in the US press in late 1939 and early 1940. For example, this item from The Syracuse Herald-Journal, April 1940:

"Stocks with a war flavor bounded up to more than 4 points in today's early market, In the fastest sprint since the 'baby boom' of last fall, but the majority stumbled badly in the latter part of the proceedings."

The 'boom' in babies didn't wait until servicemen returned from the war, as is popularly supposed. There was a temporary increase in the birth-rate when the US effectively entered the war in 1941, as reported by The Galveston Daily News in December, 1941 - "Baby Boom Increases Population of U. S.". There was some speculation of the cause of this at the time and some commentators put it down to men trying to avoid the draft by becoming parents - an unsuccessful ploy if true, as many new fathers were drafted into the forces in WWII.

The term 'baby boomer' was coined in the USA, clearly with reference to the already widely known 'baby boom'. This wasn't for some years after WWII and the earliest citation I've found is surprisingly late - a piece in The Bennington Banner from December 1977:

"I grew up in suburban Massachusetts, a postwar baby boomer not used to seeing empty seats in classrooms or enough textbooks to go around."

The term 'baby boomer' was initially used simply with reference to the peaks in birth-rate in the USA and UK. Over time, the connotations of the term have widened. The major economic, social and demographic changes that have been lived through by the postwar generations in the Western world have given the 'baby boomers' a unique position. They are healthier and wealthier than previous generations and can look forward to an active old-age that was denied previous generations, and also probably future ones as western economies struggle to maintain pension provision. The 'boomers' also developed rebellious, anti-establishment attitudes which have been carried on into older age, which is in contrast with a previous more deferential society and late 20th apathy.

The 'baby boom' has lead on to other expressions - 'baby bust' and 'echo boom'. These refer respectively to the period of relative low birth-rate in the 1950s which resulted in low school enrolments in the 1960s and the high birth-rates in the 1970s, when the original baby boomers had their children. These terms were both referred to in an article in The Newark Advocate, August 1975:

"Newark was not the only school district caught by surprise by the 'baby bust.' Population experts expected the postwar baby boom children, now grown, to produce an echo boom in the 1970s."

ozimex999

Baby father

Meaning

The father of an infant who is not married to or in an exclusive relationship with the mother.
未婚爸爸

Origin

This is a Jamaican phrase which has been adopted into wider UK usage via the Jamaican community in England. It is known in the West Indies since the early 20th century. A society's need for and adoption of such a term says something about the attitudes toward marriage, i.e. it implies a society with a significant proportion of single mothers. The first evidence I can find of it in print is in a court report in the Kingston newspaper The Gleaner, in July 1932:

    "I was returning from my baby father's house."

It began to be used widely in the UK in the 1990s, although it is still most commonly used in the black community.

The Independent had an article about teenage pregnancy in October 1993, which included this:

    Tiana [Green, aged 17] said she wanted to have more children. Her dream was to get married to her "baby-father" and to have babies "in the wedlock".

The BBC screened a drama series called 'Baby Father' in 2002. That title something of a play on words as the absent fathers were portrayed in the series as irresponsible and babyish.

Of course, where there are fathers there are also mothers. The term 'baby mother' is also used but is less common. This isn't quite the mirror image of 'baby father' as it is invariably the mother who takes day-to-day care of the children.

minghong

thanks

ozimex999

The back of beyond

Meaning

A lonely forsaken place.

穷乡僻壤

Origin:



The inland desert region of Australia that is otherwise known as the never the never
is also sometimes called the 'Back of Beyond'.
The term is more generally used to refer toany real or imagined remote region. It was first put into print by SirWalter Scott in his novel The Antiquary, 1816:

  "You... whirled them to the back of beyont to look at the auld Roman camp."