以前看纪录片《Life in a Day》的时候,记到过一个单词:Mamihlapinatapai,这个世界上最“概括性”的单词:
Mamihlapinatapai (sometimes spelled mamihlapinatapei) is derived from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the "most succinct word", and is considered (for example by Austrian playwright Clemens Berger) one of the hardest words to translate. It allegedly refers to "a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would initiate something that they both desire but which neither wants to begin." A slightly different interpretation of the meaning also exists: "It is that look across the table when two people are sharing an unspoken but private moment. When each knows the other understands and is in agreement with what is being expressed. An expressive and meaningful silence."[^Mamihlapinatapai]
[^Mamihlapinatapai]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamihlapinatapai
遇到好几关类似“大人物”,“大亨”这样的单词,所以学习一下:
- Bigwig
- Big cheese
- Big wheel
- Big shot
- Big fish
Bigwig
Wig除了有“假发”之意,还可指“要人”、“头脑”,bigwig则指“权贵”、“要人”。
例:She had to entertain some boring local bigwigs.
她不得不讨好那些无聊的地方大亨。
Big wheel
大轮子?哦,不~ Big wheel指的是在某个机构或组织中地位相当重要的人。
例:He's a big wheel at the company.
他在公司里很有影响力。
Big cheese
Big cheese在口语里常用,是个玩笑的说法,可以译作“头儿”,同样是指有影响力的人。
例:Who's the big cheese around here?
这儿谁是头儿啊?
Big shot
Big shot也可以表示“大人物”、“大亨”、“大腕”。
例:All the corporate big shots are meeting this afternoon.
公司的所有大佬今儿下午会面。
A big fish in a small pond
“小鱼塘里的大鱼”这个短语的意思是指在一个小群体里非常有名或重要的人,但是出了这个圈子可能就没人知道了。
例:Jane might think she has power but she's just a big fish in a small pond.
简可能觉得自己挺有权力,可她也就在自己的一亩三分地上有点儿影响力。
其实英语里面“大人物”这个意思的词非常多,我知道还有“VIP”,“tycoon”等等,不过没有找到非常系统的比较,所以,先将就一下
前段时间英语学习会上曾经讨论到过 between 是否是仅仅使用在两者之间,当时简单讨论然后并没有什么结果,今天找了一下,有一个不错的解释,来自:《The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language》
There is a well-known prescriptive rule saying that between is required when the complement denotes a set of two, and among when it denotes a larger set. This rule is based on the etymology of between, and is empirically quite unjustified, as is now recognized by most usage manuals.
The difference between the prepositions is thus not a matter of the size of the set denoted by their complement. It is, rather, that with between the members of the set are considered individually, whereas with among they are considered collectively.
Such verbs as choose, divide, share can accept both prepositions, though the collective interpretation of among will normally require a set of more than two: . . .[^between]
[^between]: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/156209/is-it-ordinary-to-use-between-for-selection-among-two-or-more-things