发信人: oceann (dany), 信区: English
标 题: 关于一些谚语的解释(转载)
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Fri Aug 8 22:40:20 2003)
1.Absence makes the heart grow fonder:
Persons, places, or things become dearer to us when they are absent.
2.All for one and one for all:
All the members of a group support each of the individual members, and the
individual members pledge to support the group.
‡ “All for one and one for all” is best known as the motto of the
title characters in the book The Three Musketeers, by the nineteenth-century F
rench author Alexandre Dumas.
3.All’s fair in love and war:
People in love and soldiers in wartime are not bound by the rules of fair
play.
‡ This proverb is frequently used when two people are contending for
the love of a third.
4.All’s well that ends well:
Problems that occur along the way do not matter as long as the outcome is
happy.
‡ This proverb was used as a title for one of William Shakespeare’s
comedies.
5.A bad penny always turns up：
Our mistakes return to haunt us; also, nasty people have a way of reappear
ing.
6.Beware of Greeks bearing gifts:
Do not trust enemies who bring you presents—they could very well be playi
ng a trick. The saying is adapted from the words of Laocoon([希神] 拉奥孔)in t
he story of the Trojan horse(特洛伊木马).
7.Boys will be boys:
Children can be expected to act in a childish way.
‡ “Boys will be boys” is often applied to grown men who act childi
shly.
8.Brevity is the soul of wit:
Intelligent speech and writing should aim at using few words. This proverb
comes from the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare.
9.Close, but no cigar:
Even a near miss is still a miss. The saying probably originated with carn
ival contests in which a cigar was the prize for hitting a target.
10.The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose:
Even things that are good in themselves (such as the Bible) can be twisted
to serve bad purposes. This proverb comes from the play The Merchant of Venic
e, by William Shakespeare.
11.The devil is in the details:
Even the grandest project depends on the success of the smallest component
s.
‡ This version of the proverb often implies that the details might c
ause failure. A more positive version is “God is in the details,” a saying o
ften attributed to the architect Le Corbusier.
12.Discretion is the better part of valor:
Caution is preferable to rash bravery. Said by Falstaff in King Henry the
Fourth, Part One, by William Shakespeare.
13.East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet:
The culture of the West (Europe and the Americas) will always be very diff
erent from that of the East (Asia). (Twain means “two.”) This saying is part
of the refrain of “The Ballad of East and West,” a poem by Rudyard Kipling(
吉卜林,英国作家,1865-1936,1907年获诺贝尔文学奖).
14.Every cloud has a silver lining:
Every misfortune has its positive aspect.
15.Familiarity breeds contempt:
The better we know people, the more likely we are to find fault with them.
16.For want of a nail the kingdom was lost:
Something of great importance may depend on an apparently trivial detail.
The saying comes from a longer proverb about a battle during which the loss of
a nail in a horseshoe leads to the loss of a horse, which leads to the loss o
f the rider, which leads to the loss of the battle, which in turn leads to the
loss of a whole kingdom.
17.Forewarned is forearmed:
Those who know that something is coming are better prepared to face it tha
n those who do not know.
18.Ignorance is bliss:
Not knowing something is often more comfortable than knowing it.
‡ This proverb resembles “What you don’t know cannot hurt you.” I
t figures in a passage from “On a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” by the
eighteenth-century English poet Thomas Gray: “Where ignorance is bliss, / ‘T
is folly to be wise.’”
19.Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery:
To imitate someone is to pay the person a genuine compliment—often an uni
ntended compliment.
20.Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone:
People prefer cheerfulness in others. A person who is cheerful will have c
ompany, but someone who is gloomy will often be alone. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, a
poet of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is the author of th
is saying.
21.Lightning never strikes twice in the same place:
Misfortune does not occur twice in the same way to the same person.
‡ In actuality, lightning can strike twice in the same place.
22.Live and let live:
We should live the life we choose and allow others to do the same.
23.Never give a sucker an even break:
Don’t hesitate to take advantage of a fool.
‡ This saying served as the title for one of the films of the comedi
an W. C. Fields.
24.No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American
people:
People can easily be persuaded to accept the most inferior ideas or useles
s products; attributed to H. L. Mencken.
25.People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones:
We shouldn’t complain about others if we are as bad as they are.
26.Politics makes strange bedfellows:
Political interests can bring together people who otherwise have little in
common. This saying is adapted from a line in the play The Tempest, by Willia
m Shakespeare: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” It is spoke
n by a man who has been shipwrecked and finds himself seeking shelter beside a
sleeping monster.
27.Practice what you preach:
Do yourself what you advise others to do.
28.Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s:
Keep politics separate from certain other fields, such as religion. This i
s part of a saying of Jesus in the Gospels; the full version is “Render unto
Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s
.”
29.When the going gets tough, the tough get going:
The way to overcome adversity is to try harder.
30.Win this one for the Gipper:
Do this in memory of somebody you revere; attributed to Knute Rockne, coac
h of the Notre Dame football team, during a half-time pep talk at the 1928 Arm
y–Notre Dame football game. Rockne told his team that a former player, George
Gipp, had said on his deathbed, “Rock, someday when things look real tough f
or Notre Dame, ask the boys to go out there and win for me.” The incident was
made famous in a movie in which Ronald Reagan played George Gipp.
31.Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus:
Our fantasies and myths are important, and often they are spiritually if n
ot literally true. This saying originated in 1897 in a newspaper editorial by
Francis Pharcellus Church, written in reply to a girl named Virginia who said
that her friends had told her there was no Santa Claus. Church also said about
Santa Claus that “ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to
make glad the heart of childhood.”
32.You cannot serve God and mammon:
Being virtuous is not compatible with being greedy (mammon means “money”
). This is a saying of Jesus in the Gospels. It explains, “No man can serve t
wo masters.”
33.You can’t go home again:
You can’t recover the past. This saying is the title of a novel by the tw
entieth-century American author Thomas Wolfe.
34.You can’t have your cake and eat it too:
The things people want are often incompatible. This proverb is easier to g
rasp if it is understood to mean “You can’t eat your cake and have it too.”
35.You can’t take it with you:
We all must leave worldly wealth behind when we die.
‡ This proverb was used as the title of a comedy by the twentieth-ce
ntury American playwrights Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. You Can’t Take It
with You concerns an unconventional family fiercely opposed to materialistic
values.
From The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002
--
好想振作一点点，真的好想
<img src=http://album3.chinaren.com/album/13/93/17409313/555736.gif border=0>
※ 来源:．哈工大紫丁香 bbs.hit.edu.cn [FROM: 210.46.71.10]