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发信人: watergod (共工), 信区: English
标  题: [转载] A.Word.A.Day--pedigree
发信站: 紫丁香 (Mon Apr 24 16:05:58 2000), 转信

【以下文字转载自 watergod 的信箱】
【原文由 Wordsmith 所发表】
pedigree (PED-i-gree) noun

   1. A line of ancestors; a lineage. A list of ancestors; a family tree.

   2. A chart of an individual's ancestors used in human genetics to analyze
      Mendelian inheritance of certain traits, especially of familial
      diseases.

   3. A list of the ancestors of a purebred animal.

[Middle English pedegru, from Anglo-Norman pe de grue : pe, foot (from
Latin pes) + de, of, from Latin de + grue, crane (from the resemblance of
a crane's foot to the lines of succession on a genealogical chart), from
Vulgar Latin *grua, from Latin grus, gru-.]

   "Khyentse Norbu, director of The Cup, a sweet-natured, old-fashioned
   comedy about soccer-loving monks, has a pedigree his PR-hungry Western
   counterparts would kill for: Recognized at age seven as the reincarnation
   of a 19th-century Buddhist lama, he now oversees, after years of rigorous
   training, a Tibetan monastery-in-exile in Bhutan ...."
   Dennis Lim, A reborn lama kick-starts his movie career, Village Voice,
   Feb 1, 2000.

What would a crane's foot have to do with a genealogical chart (unless the
chart is about a crane's lineage, that is)? Many hundred years ago someone
figured that the lines of succession on an ancestral map bore a strong
resemblance with that bird's foot, and the rest, as they say, is history.
So even though you might think this week's words appear pedestrian, pay
special attention to the etymologies. You'll discover that these words have
pedigrees that are anything but ordinary.                             -Anu

.............................................................................
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Want to add your two cents (or centimes, paise, pences, yens, liras, pesos,
piasters) worth to this week's theme or words. Log on at AWADtalk, the online
forum for people from some 184 countries around the globe and join in the
conversation. The address is http://wordsmith.org/board and admission is free.

Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/pedigree.wav
http://wordsmith.org/words/pedigree.ram
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English 版 (精华区)