时间:2019-02-13 作者:英语课 分类:英语口语


英语课

 Goldbrick: 金砖变懒汉


先来看一句话:“It's wishful thinking to expect Phil to help you - he's a goldbrick.” 您是不是要问:为什么“让菲尔帮忙是痴心妄想?” Goldbrick在这里是什么意思?不打哑谜了,在句中,goldbrick指的是an idle worthless person(吊儿郎当的懒汉),它的渊源则可追溯到19世纪美国的“淘金热”。 淘金时,人们为了便于装运黄金,遂把挖出的金块铸成砖形,于是,goldbrick应运而生,在当时指的可是真的“金砖”。不过,到了1879,由于一桩轰动全美的诈骗案,“金砖”在现在倒成了“赝品”和“诈骗”的代名词。
当年,俄亥俄州某银行行长Clark参观一个他在科罗拉多州所属的矿山时,遇到一个急需出手“金砖”的骗子。骗子的手段非常高明,他的“金砖”四个角是真金,而且其中的一个角恰被Clark切下拿去辨真伪。结果可想而知,Clark上了当且由此丢掉了1万美金的预付款。案子后来虽被侦破,但不想,告白天下后,假造“金砖”的伎俩竟成为后来者进行“诈骗”的楷模。由于类似诈骗行为此后屡次发生,人们渐渐忘了goldbrick的本义,而把“金砖”看成是“赝品”和“诈骗”的代名词。 到了20世纪初,在美国士兵中流传的俚语里,那些“不爱说话、不会跳舞、样子也不出众的女孩子”竟被称为“goldbrick”,理由很简单,在这些士兵眼中,这类女子太不“女人”。一战时,goldbrick又被赋予了新的含义,由于战争的需要,大量未受过正规训练的老百姓应征入伍,他们被那些军校出身的军官戏谑为goldbrick。 随着时间的推移,goldbrick的词义慢慢扩大,现在用来指“游手好闲,吊儿郎当的懒汉、怠工者或骗子”。

标签: 金砖
学英语单词
a pair of steps
adkinson
advanced annual survey
amplitide lopper
as-cast-finish concrete
aspirating burner
assignment key
Bader
body seam
BRIMEC
Bruehl receiver
Cardamine engleriana
carving-and-engraving decoration
casillo
catapults
channel oven
computation space
conduplicate cotyledon
constant ratio code
consumption price
Down in the doldrums
drinks
dub poetry
duddered
electrical computer
electrocapillarity
engine necelle
excellent pay and condition
family Geometridae
Fermi theory of weak interaction
flying kisses
FreeTDS
friand
grain diminution
guardia civil
halflings
hemangioma of palate
hexamethoxide
hongkong ear
Hume's
hunt someone down
hydowse
integral equation
it's a crying shame
jogging relay
kohonen
layout density
liquid-fired
magnetic navigation
Mansein
mapk
meltoryzine
Merlin
minimum critical volume
mosaic agate
multiplex terminal
myologist
non ideal gas
non rattling
open cell
ordinary practice
oscillating scan
pactory
pelligrini
perciformes
Pilizocarpeae
plasma desorption mass spectrometry
polyaddition resin
polymorphic sun light eruption
porous flow
previous generation
purolysis of refuse
Raczki
radiation fields
recitest
redbird flower
relieve themselves
remote digital loopback test
revenue service day
role - playing game
singlestranded DNA binding protein
Sprague's
squared error loss function
stationary grate bar
structure discrimination
Tamalelt
teamies
terminate contract before the date of expiration
Terminosporus
test tone peak deviation
testing pressure
theorem of parallel axes
Tingwon I.
Tiniroto
total treatment
under an alias
underflow locus
undisparaging
universal-joint bushing and ring spider
vena mediastinales
vibrator unit
Yakshur-Bod'ya