时间:2019-02-05 作者:英语课 分类:英文语法词汇


英语课

Part E


如果你很喜欢一个人,看他/她特别顺眼,那幺你就可以称他是apple of one’s eye。你可能会想,苹果当然可爱了,或者,你也可能会想,我最讨厌苹果了,不论怎样,这个成语其实和苹果的关系不是很直接。Apple of one’s eye这个成语的历史很悠久,在圣经里就可以见到。古时候的人们认为,人的黑眼球又实又亮,形状像苹果一样。因此,apple of one’s eye的本意是指人的黑眼球。后来,它的意思就演变成让人喜欢的人,因为,黑眼球对人来说,是非常重要的,没有它,人不能看到东西。比如说,一个人谈到他的女朋友时说:


  I love Karen so much. She is the apple of my eye.


  他的意思就是:我很爱Karen。她就是我最宝贝的宝贝。


  当然,这个成语也可以用在亲人,朋友之间。例如,一个当女儿的说:


  For my mom, I am the apple of her eye.


  (对我妈妈来说,我就是她的贴心小棉袄。)


  恋人的爱情有时候是很盲目的。大家一定会有这样的经历,一个男孩或者女孩,本来长相平平,但追求他/她的人就是觉得漂亮。有一句老话,叫做“情人眼里出西施”,这在英文里就是:Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 1。它的直译就是:美不美,要看谁来欣赏。这话其实还是很有道理的,我们每个人的生活环境不同,受到的教育不同,文化习俗不同,审美观念自然不同。人的差异是必然的,关键是要彼此包容。说到这里,我就想起美国人对东方人的审美了。对我们来说,大眼睛,白皮肤,娇小依人的女孩好看,但是美国人就认为那种丹凤眼,肤色偏黑,身体健康的亚洲女孩漂亮,比如著名演员Lucy Liu,老美就迷的不行(其实,我也觉得她长的很美)。而翻开杂志,一旦有亚洲女孩出现,我们的反应总是,咦?这个模特怎幺长的这幺一般呀。不过,美国人也开始接受中国式的美女了,比如说龚俐,章子怡之类的。其实,长的漂亮不漂亮并不重要,而有良好的气质,走到哪里都会受欢迎的。


  转回正题,让我们来看看这个成语是如何用的。下面这个人在谈论自己好友的女友时,就用到了这个成语:


  Pete told me his girlfriend was gorgeous, but when I saw her, I think she was just pretty. I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.


  (Pete告诉我他的女朋友是个大美女,可当我见到她,我也就觉得她长的还可以。看来真的是情人眼里出西施啊。)


  这个成语不仅可以用在恋人之间,也可以用在别的地方,比如对其它的人啊,对某样东西啊,等等。例如,这个人聊天的时候说,


  My parents redecorated their house. For them, it is marvelous, but for me, it is ordinary still. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.


  (我父母重新装修了他们的房子。对他们来讲,这房子漂亮的不得了,可对我,还是很一般。是不是美丽,还得看谁来欣赏啊。)


很多情侣是见第一面的时候就对上眼的,在中文里,我们称之为“一见钟情”。这在英文里,就叫做Love at first sight,即见了第一面就爱上了。这个成语既可以当名词使用,也可以当动词使用。一见钟情很难预测,因为通常双方都是被对方的外表所吸引,并不了解相互的性格。交往之后,有的情侣达成默契,结成终身伴侣,而有的情侣话不投机,不欢而散。比如有个人在评论朋友的爱情时说:


  I introduced Joe to Margie, and they fell in love at first sight.


  (我把Joe介绍给Margie,然后他们就一见钟情了。)


  在这句话里,fall in love就是坠入爱河的意思。


  而下面这个人则在谈论一次并不成功的“一见钟情”:


  Although it was love at first sight, after six month’s courtship, they finally broke up.


  她的意思就是:虽然他们是一见钟情,但经过六个月的恋爱,最后还是分手了。


  在上面这句话里,courtship指的是恋爱,break up的意思是分手。



n.观看者,旁观者
  • Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 看起来觉得美就是美。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • It has been said that art is a tryst, for in the joy of it maker and beholder meet. 有人说艺术是一种幽会,因为艺术家和欣赏者可在幽会的乐趣中相遇在一起。 来自《简明英汉词典》
学英语单词
abdominal fistula
agricultural cooperative
American Chippendale furniture
Andzhiyevskiy
annealing crack
anoxemic
articulationes cuneonavicularis
as hard as a stone
asslike
at right angles to
attract away
Aurobismuthinite
Bazine
bellicous
bigrid valve
blew your own trumpet
Bothithong
bovine leukemia virus
brickhammer
busy oneself in
camera bay
Chukhung, Mt.
coal washing and dressing
Cochran boiler
color prejudice
concrete delivery pipe
conventional practice
core print seat
culcua simulans
De Frise ozonizer
deemsters
definitive hosts
desert survival
development sampling
dursun
elegist
Emiratized
empirical term
equipment performance
expense arising from outside-manu-facture
fascial rupture
flood boards
fragmentary equivalent form
genus alcelaphuss
ground inversion
gwendas
hepatic infarction
holding furnaces
hydrelatic
independent brewery
Indus-Ganges River Lowland
inflorescences
intramembranous
Krasninskiy
Linaria japonica
line grade
long-pending
malavenda
midborder
mudsled
Niemann
NLNE
open class
pageanteer
Palestine sunbird
palladium leak test
partially penetrating well
posit-else logical structure
postinsula
processing of electromagnetic signals
proembryos
radial planimetric plotter
ratio of operational tons to port's throughput
renin
resurrectee
row distance
scouting line
secretomotory
segmenta
sensitive line along a channel
simple sample
sky cavalry
skylit
speciality shop
St David's Day
stimulation in the sea
supervisorships
synonymical
technical requirements
temporary method
the second language
thro'
timber standard
Travers
trenke
tryptic bate
two negative charges
ultracentrifugal sedimentation velocity method
vapometallurgical process
visfatin
waveguide twists
younger generation