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
a babe in christ
a-eb
aacte
adrostral carina
alyosha
amynthas shinanmontis
anematize
annual minimum relative humidity
anticondensation coating
axially-split casing
ballatoon
bank authorization letter
bastard loom
be tied hand and foot
bi-fold door
blood sampling pipet
bob haircut
branch tendril
Byzovaya
capital construction project audit
carding and brushing machine
cervical vein
chromatographic condition
coalwood
combination planes
communia
community income
conveyers
drawing quality
dunduns
e-strategist
electrooptic modulating cell
erman rolling hatch cover
exome
Fibrobacterales
final drawing
formed up
fretly
frontal muscle
gains from trade
gunnysack
half sine shock pulse
hippopotamuss
hypnagogic image
iens
Imitorecs
James the Less
jetties
John Birch Society
lifeguard submarine
long meter
Machel
make like a banana and split
mathe
mining metallurgical engineering
montanyl alcohol
ms-doss
MSME
Musudal-li(Musudan-ni)
NDGA
nhb
notransitive dependency
oral mucous membrane
ornithology
ossidesmosis
overripening
pepere
philologi cal
plate web girder
plug in mounting
prison psychosis
pulse remote control system
reciprocal currency agreement
refracted reflection
rock structure
sea-shell concentrator
shipping brackets
shipping exchange
SL1
smee
spoil heap
stabbed
starching mangle
steam beer
strategic partnership
subsonic maneuver
systemic factor
tactical surprise
tars us
temporal aliasing
tijeras
tint correction
two dimensional compression
unbidden
Villefranche-de-Panat
wave division multiplexing
we-ntz
West Prussia, Westpreussen
wet calorific power
wholesale manufacture
yunita
zero-unity variable