With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson--the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent --brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproa...
With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson--the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent --brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.
作者简介
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比尔·布莱森 Bill Bryson，当今英语世界非常多产且“最能逗乐”的游记作家之一，诙谐嘲谑的风格堪称一绝。作品包括旅游类随笔、科普著作等，其中《万物简史》《布莱森英语简史》《“小不列颠”札记》《一脚踩进小美国》销量逾百万册，一直雄踞《纽约时报》《泰晤士报》畅 销书榜。 2004年，《万物简史》获得英国皇家学会安万特奖。
比尔·布莱森 Bill Bryson，当今英语世界非常多产且“最能逗乐”的游记作家之一，诙谐嘲谑的风格堪称一绝。作品包括旅游类随笔、科普著作等，其中《万物简史》《布莱森英语简史》《“小不列颠”札记》《一脚踩进小美国》销量逾百万册，一直雄踞《纽约时报》《泰晤士报》畅 销书榜。 2004年，《万物简史》获得英国皇家学会安万特奖。
1788年，第一批英国大陆移民来到了澳洲植物学湾（Botany Bay），他们发现了一个全新的世界，到处都是从未见过的动植物以及特有的地理景观。语言学大师叶斯柏森因此写道：“这是史上第一次需要大量创造新词的时期，这么说可能一点也不夸张。”澳洲人从原著居民那里学会了很多词，又创造了大量新词，比如billabong用来指含盐量较高的死水潭，didgeridoo是一种喇叭，bombora是一片可通航但是有危险礁石的水域，还有boomerang（回飞棒）、koala（考拉）、outback（尤指澳大利亚的内陆地区）、kangaroo（袋鼠）等。
澳洲的新居民在创造俚语方面也很有创意，如tucker（食品）、slygrogging（私藏的酒）、bonzer（极佳的）、nong（傻瓜）、having the shits（急躁的）以及technicolor yawn（呕吐）等。有些新词其实就是旧词的缩减版，如postie表示postman、footy表示football、arvo表示afternoon、roo表示kangaroo、compo表示compensation。
当然也有一些是“澳洲制造”，如scarce as rocking-horse manure（非常罕见）、about as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool（极不受欢迎的）、don't come the raw prawn（别想骗我）以及rattle your dags（快点走）。
虽然历史上澳洲和英国渊源深厚，但在语言上澳洲不仅受到了英国的影响，也受到了美国的影响。在澳洲，人们把“饼干”称为cookies，而不是biscuits；把“政客竞选”叫run for office，而这在英国用stand；“旅行车”叫station wagon，而不是estate cars；“银行收... (查看原文)
有则英文招聘笑话：3-year-old teacher need for pre-school. Experience preferred。有人翻译：幼儿园招聘3岁大的老师，有经验者优先。这翻译看了让人不免捧腹，什么特殊学校需要招聘3岁的老师，可能吗？原来这只是个乌龙，真正的意思是：幼儿园招聘照看3岁幼童的老师，有经验...
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========== #38-38 English is, in short, one of the world’s great growth industries. ========== #43-49 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words, and the revised Oxford English Dictionary has 615,000, but that is only part of the total. Technical and scientific terms would add millions more. Altogether, about 200,000 English words are in common use, more than in German (...
2020-07-21 11:06
========== #38-38
English is, in short, one of the world’s great growth industries.
========== #43-49
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words, and the revised Oxford English Dictionary has 615,000, but that is only part of the total. Technical and scientific terms would add millions more. Altogether, about 200,000 English words are in common use, more than in German (184,000) and far more than in French (a mere 100,000 ). The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinction unavailable to non-English speakers. The French, for instance, cannot distinguish between house and home, between mind and brain, between man and gentleman, between “I wrote” and “I have written.” The Spanish cannot differentiate a chairman from a president, and the Italians have no equivalent of wishful thinking. In Russia there are no native words for efficiency, challenge, engagement ring, have fun, or take care [all cited in The New York Times, June 18, 1980].
========== #70-73
The residents of the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea have a hundred words for yams, while the Maoris of New Zealand have thirty-five words for dung (don’t ask me why). Meanwhile, the Arabs are said (a little unbelievably, perhaps) to have 6,000 words for camels and camel equipment. The aborigines of Tasmania have a word for every type of tree, but no word that just means “tree,” while the Araucanian Indians of Chile rather more poignantly have a variety of words to distinguish between different degrees of hunger.
========== #679-680
No king of England spoke English for the next 300 years. It was not until 1399, with the accession of Henry IV, that England had a ruler whose mother tongue was English.
========== #691-693
For one thing, Parisian French, called Francien, tended to avoid the “w” sound. So while the Normans pronounced quit, question, quarter, and other such words as if they were spelled kwit, kwestion, and kwarter, Parisians pronounced them with a hard “k” sound.
========== #689-690
At the same time, animals in the field usually were called by English names (sheep, cow, ox), but once cooked and brought to the table, they were generally given French names (beef, mutton, veal, bacon.
========== #705-708
Because English had no official status, for three centuries it drifted. Without a cultural pivot, some place to set a standard, differences in regional usage became more pronounced rather than less. As C. L. Barber notes: “Early Middle English texts give the impression of a chaos of dialects, without many common conventions in pronunciation or spelling, and with wide divergences in grammar and vocabulary.” [The Story of Language, page 152]
========== #964-964
A similar misunderstanding gave us cherry (from cerise).
That may seem a trifling point, but the slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat, and thus made choking a possibility, also brought with it the possibility of sophisticated, well-articulated speech.
2013-08-20 09:13
That may seem a trifling point, but the slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat, and thus made choking a possibility, also brought with it the possibility of sophisticated, well-articulated speech.引自 The Dawn of Language
In English adjectives have just one invariable form with but, I believe, one exception: blond/blonde. 首先，我依稀记得blond(e)这个单词本身就是从法语过来的，这种用e区分性别的做法不过是沿袭法语的习惯而已，严格意义上这不能说是英语的形容词吧…… 其次，难道作者的意思是，那么多从法语收过来的形容词里，唯有这个词保留了词尾e区分性别这个特征嘛=口=！！！ 球证实啊！
2011-09-23 16:57
In English adjectives have just one invariable form with but, I believe, one exception: blond/blonde.引自第27页
At a conference of sociologists in America in 1977, love was defined as "the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of the amorance." That is jargon—the practice of never calling a spade a spade when you might instead call it a manual earth-restructuring implement—and it is one of the great curses...
2011-09-23 15:48
At a conference of sociologists in America in 1977, love was defined as "the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of the amorance." That is jargon—the practice of never calling a spade a spade when you might instead call it a manual earth-restructuring implement—and it is one of the great curses of modern English.引自第11页
貌似他的dictionary of troublesome words里面，jargon这个词条里也是这么写的╮(╯_╰)╭
话说，a manual earth-restructuring implement不一定就是spade啊，也可以是锄头来着，这个jargon还不够精确啊=___,=
That may seem a trifling point, but the slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat, and thus made choking a possibility, also brought with it the possibility of sophisticated, well-articulated speech.
2013-08-20 09:13
That may seem a trifling point, but the slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat, and thus made choking a possibility, also brought with it the possibility of sophisticated, well-articulated speech.引自 The Dawn of Language
========== #38-38 English is, in short, one of the world’s great growth industries. ========== #43-49 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words, and the revised Oxford English Dictionary has 615,000, but that is only part of the total. Technical and scientific terms would add millions more. Altogether, about 200,000 English words are in common use, more than in German (...
2020-07-21 11:06
========== #38-38
English is, in short, one of the world’s great growth industries.
========== #43-49
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words, and the revised Oxford English Dictionary has 615,000, but that is only part of the total. Technical and scientific terms would add millions more. Altogether, about 200,000 English words are in common use, more than in German (184,000) and far more than in French (a mere 100,000 ). The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinction unavailable to non-English speakers. The French, for instance, cannot distinguish between house and home, between mind and brain, between man and gentleman, between “I wrote” and “I have written.” The Spanish cannot differentiate a chairman from a president, and the Italians have no equivalent of wishful thinking. In Russia there are no native words for efficiency, challenge, engagement ring, have fun, or take care [all cited in The New York Times, June 18, 1980].
========== #70-73
The residents of the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea have a hundred words for yams, while the Maoris of New Zealand have thirty-five words for dung (don’t ask me why). Meanwhile, the Arabs are said (a little unbelievably, perhaps) to have 6,000 words for camels and camel equipment. The aborigines of Tasmania have a word for every type of tree, but no word that just means “tree,” while the Araucanian Indians of Chile rather more poignantly have a variety of words to distinguish between different degrees of hunger.
========== #679-680
No king of England spoke English for the next 300 years. It was not until 1399, with the accession of Henry IV, that England had a ruler whose mother tongue was English.
========== #691-693
For one thing, Parisian French, called Francien, tended to avoid the “w” sound. So while the Normans pronounced quit, question, quarter, and other such words as if they were spelled kwit, kwestion, and kwarter, Parisians pronounced them with a hard “k” sound.
========== #689-690
At the same time, animals in the field usually were called by English names (sheep, cow, ox), but once cooked and brought to the table, they were generally given French names (beef, mutton, veal, bacon.
========== #705-708
Because English had no official status, for three centuries it drifted. Without a cultural pivot, some place to set a standard, differences in regional usage became more pronounced rather than less. As C. L. Barber notes: “Early Middle English texts give the impression of a chaos of dialects, without many common conventions in pronunciation or spelling, and with wide divergences in grammar and vocabulary.” [The Story of Language, page 152]
========== #964-964
A similar misunderstanding gave us cherry (from cerise).
That may seem a trifling point, but the slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat, and thus made choking a possibility, also brought with it the possibility of sophisticated, well-articulated speech.
2013-08-20 09:13
That may seem a trifling point, but the slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat, and thus made choking a possibility, also brought with it the possibility of sophisticated, well-articulated speech.引自 The Dawn of Language
In English adjectives have just one invariable form with but, I believe, one exception: blond/blonde. 首先，我依稀记得blond(e)这个单词本身就是从法语过来的，这种用e区分性别的做法不过是沿袭法语的习惯而已，严格意义上这不能说是英语的形容词吧…… 其次，难道作者的意思是，那么多从法语收过来的形容词里，唯有这个词保留了词尾e区分性别这个特征嘛=口=！！！ 球证实啊！
2011-09-23 16:57
In English adjectives have just one invariable form with but, I believe, one exception: blond/blonde.引自第27页
花袭人
Penguin Books2008版
魏剑峰
========== #38-38 English is, in short, one of the world’s great growth industries. ========== #43-49 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words, and the revised Oxford English Dictionary has 615,000, but that is only part of the total. Technical and scientific terms would add millions more. Altogether, about 200,000 English words are in common use, more than in German (...
That may seem a trifling point, but the slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat, and thus made choking a possibility, also brought with it the possibility of sophisticated, well-articulated speech.
0 有用 逆铭睡眼惺忪地 2018-05-18
书有点老，还算有趣
0 有用 鸢尾 2016-09-06
语言学大众读物。
0 有用 無人知曉的時刻 2018-02-08
前半段惊艳，后半段有些抖机灵。即便并非我的mother tongue，无法形容我对于这门语言的爱。
0 有用 Vogon 2012-12-10
胡子叔够调侃，不过欠考证的地方也不少。
1 有用 moviejunkie 2010-08-24
为美国英语正名and other stuff
0 有用 小笨 2021-03-03
非常高的一本书
0 有用 Sally 2021-02-11
Oh, I just fell on my Aris! Aris - Aristotle - bottle - bottle glass - ass 😂 这也太委婉了！听curse 那一段真的不太舒服。还是学到了不少东西。作者很擅长总结。
0 有用 K 2020-06-29
可以当做入门读物，但fact checking有待提高。
0 有用 xpolar 2020-05-18
前三章还可以，读起来挺有意思的，到开始讲英语语言的起源、文字的创造和变迁、单词拼写发音等等，就变无聊了……而且是过于硬的干货，不适合拿此书当消遣的我了
0 有用 1＜γл(h 2019-07-22
一直觉得英语的这些词根很有意思 之前查词的时候都会看眼etymology那栏 （现在终于有理由反驳那些说不能以preposition结尾的老师了）