从《新概念英语》第三册漫谈动物

2010-05-18 00:00:00来源：上海新东方学校

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在新概念第三册的数篇课文中都讲到动物。如第一课A puma at large，第九课 Flying Cats 和第十九课 A very dear cat都讲cat，十六课的Mary had a little lamb等等。

纵观中西方文化，英汉两种语言中概念意义相对应的词汇，由于社会文化背景的不同，其国俗语义可能相去甚远。英语中经常出现与动物有关的习语，往往与字面意思相差很大。如：
　　

　　1.be the cat’s pajamas 了不起的东西、人、主意等
　　

　　2.a cat-and-dog life 经常吵架的生活（在一起居住者）
　　

　　3.a cat in hell’s chance 一点儿机会也没有
　　

　　4.Play cat and mouse game with sb. 对某人时好时坏，忽冷忽热
　　

　　5.Put the cat among the pigeons. 引来可能招惹是非或麻烦的人或事物　　
　　

　　这里将重点介绍几个常用习语：
　　

　　1. Let the cat out of the bag. 泄露秘密
　　

　　为了更好的理解，这里附上这些短语的来源。
　　

　　Origin: The expression comes from an old tradesman’s trick of hiding a cat in a bag and trying to sell it as a pig. A smart buyer, of course, would look inside the bag and learn the truth when the cat jumped out
　　

　　举例: I wanted mother’s present to be a secret, but my sister let the cat out of the bag.
　　

　　2. No room to swing a cat : to have not enough space to live and work in.
　　

　　vOrigin: Some believe that men once found it was fun to seize a cat by the tail and swing it around their heads. This is a reasonable belief. You do need some space for this.
　　

　　One of Shakespeare’s characters says,” Hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me.”(Much ado about nothing)
　　

　　举例: There is no room to swing a cat in here.
　　

　　3. Rain cats and dogs: to rain very heavily
　　

　　Origin: the famous 18th century Irish writer ,Jonathan Swift, is said to be responsible for the widely used phrase, “it is raining cats and dogs.” one writer believes that it comes from the idea that a thunderstorm sounds like a cat-and-dog fight.
　　

　　4. To see which way the cat jumps : delay taking action or a decision until it becomes clear how events will turn out.
　　

　　Origin: it comes from some similar or equally brutal sport, although one belief is that the cat describes by this phrase is not a cat. It is really a stick that somebody hits on one of its ends, making it spring up into the air.