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美国俚语:tiptoe around是什么意思?

2010-12-26来源:和谐英语

tiptoe这个词的意思是脚尖,用脚尖走。而tiptoe around主要有两个意思:

1.做某事小心翼翼的 (to act very cautiously about something )

例句:

Yet to this day they tend to tiptoe around Muslims as a distinct market segment.

而今他们应对穆斯林这个决然不同的市场时总是小心翼翼。
 

2. 避免谈论令人不快的或者有争议的事情(to avoid speaking about a painful or controversial issue)

例句:

In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt tried to tiptoe around the war question and when that didn't wash, he simply lied about it.

1940年,罗斯福想悄悄地规避战争问题。当他这样做瞒不了人时,他干脆说谎。 

今天朋友在看美剧Gossip Girl的时候遇到了这个tiptoe around,顺便分享一下这段对白:

Vanessa: I gotta go. So I will see you later at the library, and I'm sorry about before with the Tisch catalog.

(我得走了 一会儿我们在图书馆见吧 还有之前Tisch项目的事情, 我很抱歉。)

Dan: It's fine.

(没什么)

Vanessa: Dan, I don't know how to do this. We've been tiptoeing around each other for days.

(Dan 我不知道该怎么办  这几天我们都在回避着彼此。)

Dan: Look, we're... we're two artists in a relationship,and sometimes we're gonna be competing for the same things,So,

all right, we're... we're... we're smart people.

(听着, 我们是... 两个在恋爱当中的艺术家,有时候我们会为了某一件事情而共同竞争,所以没什么的 ,我们是... 我们是聪明人。)

来源:和谐英语学习网-口语频道