时间:2019-02-05 作者:英语课 分类:英语口语


英语课

   这则习语的来源有两种说法,一种认为return to one's mutton原是直译自法国田园诗中的一句: 多情的男女牧羊人在牧场上谈情说爱、海阔天空,最终还得回到现实,回到自己的羊群中来。


  另一种说法是出自14世纪的法国喜剧《巴德林律师》(L'Avocat Pathelin)。有个毛料商指控牧羊人犯了虐待羊群罪,牧羊人请把德林律师为他辩护,毛料上在陈述事情的时候竟然无中生有地诋毁说,巴德林律师曾偷过他店里的一块布。法官制止说:“我的朋友,我们还是回到有关羊这件事吧。”
  不管怎么说return to one's muttons是从法语译过来的,法语中“羊”叫做mouton,英语中“羊”叫sheep。法语进入英语后,mouton演变成了mutton。在英语中,mutton只指“羊肉”而不指“羊”。因为在当时英国的法国人大都是有钱人,他们吃“羊肉”时用mutton,而牧羊的盎格鲁撒克逊族的穷人称“羊”为sheep。久而久之,英语中就把“羊”叫做sheep,“羊肉”叫做mutton。
  **例句点津**
  Cut short the nonsense and return to one's muttons. 闲话少说,言归正传。

标签: 口语
学英语单词
able rating
absolute measurement method
amphiprion perideraion
application for admission
approximate market
aquifar test
attachment site
back-basket store
backswimming
bin system
bituminic
Boolean operators
bother oneself with
Brummagems
Caledon River
chronic heat exhaustion
coddler
common base current gain
concurrent negligences
conduit connection
cyclic ignorable coordinate
dark-sided
deacetylranaconitine
deratization certificate
double resonance
Dänischenhagen
effused-reflexed
equal aquals
equiblast cupola
extra-quranic
fixed points method of calibration
free storage period
frost fog
gas show
green colour
greenlit
Gris-PEG
hamlock
heart-leaved aster
horizontal resolution bars
hot-mix plant
humitas
hypothec bands
income tax on joint venture
indirect analog
individualized manpower training
inquisitivenesses
integrated software line
Interdev
ipropethidine
levy en masse
logistic regression
machine-element
MacS.
make a poor appearance
medical-devices
milli-webers
Moorewood
moorstone
nanobe
neocolonialisms
neutron fluxes
newricall
numerical subroutine library
Orchis kunihikoana
origin of the atmosphere
pale-golds
para-pentyloxy-phenol
payment in arrears
peroxybenzoic acid
pharyngeal opening of eustachian tube
poisonou
propargylchloride
rotary cup atomizing oil burner
rouke
round-necked
sack lunches
sailwing wind generator
sand-castles
self-incompatibillity
sideyways
simple chancre
slow sticking
spanghewed
structural var (svar)
swell-shrink characteristics
tannin idioblast
taran
tedd
tensile stressed skin
third-generation phototypesetter
three-part harmony
transitivity of equivalence relation
ultrahigh voltage transformer oil
uniformly placed
use bit
vicka
vidas
weed control chemicals
wishful thinking
Yerkish