单词 | 编者 |
释义 | 〔compositor〕from Latin [writer, compiler] 源自 拉丁语 [作者,编者] 〔syphilis〕In 1530 Girolamo Fracastoro, a physician, astronomer, and poet of Verona,published a poem entitled "Syphilis, sive Morbus Gallicus,” translated as "Syphilis, or the French Disease.” In Fracastoro's poem the name of this dreaded venereal disease is an altered form of the hero's name,Syphilus. The hero, a shepherd, is supposed to have been the first victim of the disease. Where the nameSyphilus itself came from is not known for certain, but it has been suggested that Fracastoro borrowed the name from Ovid'sMetamorphoses. In Ovid's work Sipylus (spelledSiphylus in some manuscripts) is the oldest son of Niobe, who lived not far from Mount Sipylon in Asia Minor.Fracastoro's poem about Syphilus was modeled on the story of Niobe.Although the etymology involving Sipylus was known to the editors of theOxford English Dictionary, it was not accepted as their last word on the subject.C.T. Onions, one of the dictionary's editors, writing in theOxford Dictionary of English Etymology, says that “ Syphilus [the shepherd's name] is of unkn[own] origin.” Fracastoro went on to use the termsyphilis again in his medical treatise De Contagione, published in 1546. The word that Fracastoro used in Latin was eventually borrowed into English, being first recorded in 1718.1530年,吉罗拉莫·弗拉卡斯特罗,一位医生,天文学家,也是维罗纳的诗人,发表了名为"Syphius, sive Morbus Gallicus"的诗,译作“梅毒,或法国疾病”。在弗拉卡斯特罗的诗中,这种可怕的性病的名字是主人公名字 Syphilus(西弗乐斯) 的变体。 主人公是一名牧羊人,据认为是该病的第一个受害者。 Syphilus(西弗乐斯) 这一名字本身的来源并不明确, 但有人认为弗拉卡斯特罗是从奥维德的变形记 中借用的。 在奥维德的作品中,西皮卢斯(Sipylus)(有些版本写作Siphylus )是尼俄柏的大儿子, 他住在小亚细亚的锡皮劳恩山附近。弗拉卡斯特罗的有关西弗乐斯的诗是以尼俄柏的故事为原型的。尽管牛津英语词典 的编者们知道有关西弗乐斯的词源, 这种词源解释还没有被最终确认下来。该词典的编者之一,C·T·奥尼恩斯在牛津英语词源 中写道“ 西弗乐斯 的词源不详”。 在弗拉卡斯特罗发表于1546年的医学论文传染病 中,他继续用 梅毒 这一词语。 弗拉卡斯特罗用的这一拉丁语词是终被借用进英语,其最早的记录出现于1718年〔quark〕"Three quarks for Muster Mark! / Sure he hasn't got much of a bark / And sure any he has it's all beside the mark.” This passage of James Joyce'sFinnegans Wake is part of a scurrilous 13-line poem directed against King Mark,the cuckolded husband in the Tristan legend.The poem and the accompanying prose are packed with names of birds and words suggestive of birds,and the poem is a squawk,like the cawing of a crow, against King Mark.Thus, Joyce uses the wordquark, which comes from the standard English verbquark, meaning "to caw, croak,” and also from the dialectal verb quawk, meaning"to caw, screech like a bird.” But Joyce'squark was not what it has become: "any of a group of hypothetical subatomic particles proposed as the fundamental units of matter.”Murray Gell-Mann, the physicist who proposed these particles, in a private letter of June 27, 1978, to the editor of theOxford English Dictionary, said that he had actually been influenced by Joyce's word in naming the particle,although the influence was subconscious at first.Gell-Mann was thinking of using the pronunciation (kwôrk) for the particle,possibly something he had picked up fromFinnegans Wake, which he "had perused from time to time since it appeared in 1939. . . . The allusion to three quarks seemed perfect" (originally there were only three subatomic quarks).Gell-Mann, however, wanted to pronounce the word with (ô) not (ä), as Joyce seemed to indicate by rhyming words in the vicinity such asMark. Gell-Mann got around that "by supposing that one ingredient of the line ‘Three quarks for Muster Mark’was a cry of ‘Three quarts for Mister . . . ’ heard in H.C. Earwicker's pub.”冲马克王呱叫三声! / 很显然一声狗吠对他还不够 / 很显然他所有的一切都和盛名无关。 这一段出自詹姆斯·乔伊斯的为芬尼根守灵 , 是对马克王进行侮辱谩骂的一首十三行诗中的一部分。马克王是特里斯特拉姆传奇故事中被戴了绿帽子的丈夫。这首诗和随同的叙述中充斥着鸟类的名字和暗示鸟类的词。这首诗是对马克王的粗声抗诉,就象乌鸦的啼叫。所以乔伊斯用了quark 一词, 它来源于标准英语动词quark (意思为“呱呱地叫,乌鸦叫”)和方言中的动词 quawk (意思为“象鸟一样呱呱地叫、尖叫”)。 乔伊斯笔下的quark 一词并不是现在形成的意思: “任何一组假想的亚原子粒子,被认为是物质的基本单位”。这些粒子的提出者——物理学家默里·基尔曼在1978年6月27日写给牛津英语词典 编者的一封私人信件中说, 他给这种粒子命名时确实受到了乔伊斯这个词的影响,虽然这种影响起初只是潜意识的。基尔曼本想用(kwôrk)这个发音来代表这种粒子,可能也是从为芬尼根守灵 一书中汲取出来的。 自从1939年这书出版以来,他曾时常精读…关于三声呱叫的暗示看上去很完满(最初只有三种亚原子夸克)。但是基尔曼想让这个词发音为(o)而不是(a)——乔伊斯将韵押为与Mark 相近的音好象表明该发这个音。 基尔曼认为这行诗中的一部分“对马克王呱叫三声”,实际上是在酒店中听到的“给这位先生来三夸脱酒”叫喊声 |
随便看 |
|
学习网英语词汇栏目收词371507余条,连同派生词、复合词、词组和习语等。每个词条提供了音标、词性、释义、用法、搭配和同(近)义词等多项功能,对所收词汇进行全方位的解释和说明,内容丰富,功能全面。