我們對(duì)縮寫并不陌生，很多以撇號(hào)表明縮略，有些則無新意可言，直接可看出其來源，如I’m, you’re, they’ll （"我是、你是、他們是"）等。但有些日常詞匯已不用縮略標(biāo)記，你很有可能都意識(shí)不到這些詞最初以別樣的形式存在。

 

don and doff

 

穿戴

 

Saying that you’ll don your coat or doff your hat might be a little old-fashioned, but you’ll probably still recognize them as meaning ‘put on’ and ‘take off’. What you might not have realized is that the words were originally contractions of essentially those definitions: do on and do off.

 

說“你要don your coat或是doff your hat”不免略顯老套，但你應(yīng)該仍能辨識(shí)出其“穿上”和“脫下”的意思�；蛟S你還沒反應(yīng)過來，這詞本質(zhì)上是do on（“穿”）和do off（“脫”）這兩大定義的縮寫。

 

goodbye

 

再見

 

Everybody knows what goodbye means, but its origins may not have been detected: it’s a contraction of God be with you, with good substituted on the pattern of phrases such as good morning. Similar derivations exist across Europe for terms such as adios and adieu.

 

每個(gè)人都知道“goodbye” 的意思，但這個(gè)詞的來源或許還無人探究。它是“God be with you（上帝與你同在）”的縮約形式，套用“good morning”這樣的短語形式，換上good。歐洲俯首皆是諸如此類的詞源，如adios和adieu這樣的字眼。

 

willy-nilly

 

愿意也好，不愿也罷

 

Now used as an adverb meaning ‘without direction or planning’ (‘politicians expanded spending programmes willy-nilly’, for instance), the word is a contraction of the phrase will I, nill I (or will he, nill he etc.). This means ‘be I willing, be I unwilling’, ‘whether one likes it or not’ is still a current use of the term. An example of the original form can be found in Hamlet: ‘Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good; if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes.’

 

現(xiàn)用作副詞，意為“無方向、無規(guī)劃”（例如，"政治家們漫無目的地?cái)U(kuò)大支出方案"。）這個(gè)詞是短句will I, nill I 或（will he, nill he 等）的縮寫，意為“我愿意也好，不愿也罷”、“管它喜不喜歡”，這層意思現(xiàn)在仍常用。這詞最初的形式可以在《哈姆雷特》中找到范例：“Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good; if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes.（此處有水，好；此處有人，好；若此人到水邊溺亡，事已至此，不論是否出于自愿。）”

 

daisy

 

雛菊

 

This very literally common or garden flower opens in the morning and closes at night, and this – along with its sunny appearance – earned the flower its Old English name d ges ēage, ‘day’s eye’. Later, this contracted into the word daisy. If you’re feeling more formal, you can call it theBellis perennis.

 

這一實(shí)則再尋常不過的園林花卉早晨開放，夜晚閉合，其陽光和煦的外形為其贏得古英語(精品課)中d ges ēage, ‘day’s eye（白天的眼睛）’的名字，后來，便縮約為daisy。如要正式點(diǎn)，可以稱之為Bellis perennis（學(xué)名，太陽菊）。

 

husky

 

哈士奇犬

 

 

While husky as an adjective (typically used to describe somebody’s voice) has uncertain origins, when husky refers to the dog, things are a little clearer. The word is from the mid-19th century and originally denoting the Inuit language or an Inuit person (then termed Eskimo, which is now considered offensive): husky is an abbreviation of obsolete Ehuskemay or Newfoundland dialect Huskemaw.

 

盡管husky作為形容詞用法的來源不詳（通常用以描述人的聲音)，husky用以指代狗的時(shí)候，其來源則相對(duì)清晰明了。這一詞源自19世紀(jì)中期，最初指代因紐特語或因紐特人（后來被稱作Eskimo，現(xiàn)在這么稱呼已不禮貌）。husky是Ehuskemay的縮寫，（該詞現(xiàn)已不用），也有說是紐芬蘭方言里Huskemaw一詞的縮寫。

 

[責(zé)任編輯：王尚喆]