牛津词典新词盘点:今天你“饿毛了吗”
NBD, but are you ready to fangirl over our dictionary update? Abso-bloody-lutely. We’ve got some awesomesauce new words – no, rly – that will inform and entertain whether you’re hangry or it’s already wine o’clock. Mic drop.
虽然没什么大不了的(NBD),但是你还是准备好当我们字典新词的脑残粉(fangirl)了吗?绝对尼玛(abso-bloody-lutely)准备好了啊。我们有很多超赞的(awesomesauce)新词,真的(rly),无论是你饿毛了(hangry)还是已经到酒点(wine o’clock)了,你都会学到东西并且觉得很好玩的。扔麦(Mic drop)。
Mic drops, awesomesauce, manspreading, and more
扔麦,赞酱,大爷式占座,等等
The mic drop can be a literal ‘instance of deliberately dropping or tossing aside one’s microphone at the end of a performance or speech one considers to have been particularly impressive’, but it’s more likely to be figurative – or an exclamation to emphasize a particularly impressive point: Nuff said. Mic drop.
“扔麦(mic drop)”原意是“在表演或演讲结束时扔掉麦克风的瞬间(而且特别让人印象深刻)”,不过用得更多的是它的引申义——用作叹词,强调一件事令人印象深刻:无需多说了,扔麦。
If you want to describe something as excellent, you can use awesomesauce; on the other side of the coin, anything of a poor or disappointing standard is weak sauce. Weak sauce came first, and has a more comprehensible origin as a metaphor; an inadequate sauce would certainly let down an otherwise decent meal. Though awesomesauce clearly comes from the words awesome and sauce, the former is currently beating the latter in the Oxford English Corpus and Oxford Twitter Corpus.
如果你想描述一样东西很棒,你可以用“awesomesauce(‘赞酱’,超赞的)”;相反,很差劲、令人失望的东西就是“weak sauce(弱酱)”。先出现的是“weak sauce(弱酱)”,这个词是一个来源很好理解的比喻:酱汁不够好肯定会让美食变味。虽然“awesomesauce(赞酱)”明显只是 “awesome(很赞的)”和“sauce(酱汁)”组合起来,但它现在已经在牛津英语语料库和牛津推特语料库把“弱酱”打败了。
Why say banter (‘playfully teasing or mocking remarks exchanged with another person or group’) when you can save a syllable with bants? (Be careful where you use it, though; the term might be recognized in the UK, but is likely to get bemused looks elsewhere.) And, speaking of brevity, the initialism NBD can take the place of no big deal, while rly is handy textspeak for really.
如果说“bants(开玩笑取笑对方的话)”可以少发一个音节,为什么还要说“banter”呢?(不过要小心说的地方,在英国,人们听得懂“bants”,但在其它地方就不行了。)说到简短,首字母缩略词“NBD”可以代替“no big deal(没什么大不了的)”,而发短信时用“rly”代替“really(真的)”也很方便。
You may remember mansplain from last year’s update. It’s now joined by the noun manspreading: ‘the practice whereby a man, especially one travelling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats’. If you’re a gentleman reading this on the bus … can we suggest you arrange your legs considerately? Rly.
你或许还记得去年的更新里有“mansplain(大男子式地说话)”,现在又加入了一个名词“manspreading(大爷式占座)”:“一个男人在公共交通设施上两腿张开地坐着,好像把邻座都占了一样”。如果你是个绅士,正在公交车上读到这个……可不可以请你把腿放好点呢?说真的。
Other informal terms in this update include brain fart, bitch face, bruh, butthurt, fur baby, MacGyver, mkay, rando, and swole.
其他非正式用语新词还有“brain fart(‘大脑放屁’,指脑子抽了)”、“bitch face(‘碧池脸’,一种让人很不爽的表情)”、“bruh(‘亲’,用于称呼男性)”、“butthurt(‘屁股痛’,无理取闹的)”、“fur baby(‘毛宝宝’,带毛的宠物)”、“MacGyver(百战天龙‘马盖先’,动词,指用手边的材料当场创造性地修好东西)”、“mkay(另一种发音的‘OK’)”、“rando(不认识的傻帽)”和“swole(超有男人味)”。
Hangry?
饿毛了吗?
Beer o’clock and wine o’clock are humorous terms for the (supposedly) appropriate times of day for having your first glass of either drink. You might need to start the meal earlier if you’re feeling hangry: a blend of hungry and angry, meaning ‘bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger’. Anything snackable will come in handy.
“Beer o’clock(啤酒点)”和“wine o’clock(红酒点)”是一天里喝第一杯酒的(大概)恰当时间的幽默说法。如果你“hangry(饿毛)”了,就是说如果你“饿得脾气暴躁”的话,你或许需要提早吃饭。任何“snackable(可以当零食吃)”的东西是能给你解馋的。
English often forms new words using existing suffixes, and the realm of food and drink shows several such innovations. From the –y ending comes cheffy (relating to, or characteristic of, a chef) and melty (melting or partially melted); from the –ery ending, we get cidery (a place where cider is made) and cupcakery (a bakery that specializes in cupcakes). The latter is a venue where you’re unlikely to have the option of cakeage, which is ‘a charge made by a restaurant for serving a cake that they have not supplied themselves’, and another word created by the inclusion of a common suffix. The word is modelled on the pattern of corkage, where the same rule applies to wine. And if you can’t bring yourself to have the finest things in life separately, there is now the option of a cat café, where café patrons can eat while surrounded by feline friends.
英语经常会用现存的词缀来组合新词,饮食领域有不少这样的创新。y结尾的有“cheffy(与大厨有关或有大厨风范的)”和“melty(正在融化或者已经部分融化的)”;ery结尾的有“cidery(制作苹果酒的地方)”和“cupcakery(专卖纸杯蛋糕的面包店)”。在纸杯蛋糕店里你不太可能会知道“cakeage(蛋糕费)”是什么,那是“餐厅提供给你蛋糕却不提供给自己而产生的费用”,也是一个由常见词缀组合的词。这个词是按照“corkage(开瓶费)”的模式组合的,同样的规则对“wine(葡萄酒)”也适用。如果你不能让自己在生活中得到最好的东西,那你可以选择去“cat café(猫咪咖啡厅)”,咖啡厅的顾客可以在喵星朋友的包围下进餐。
Gaming and the Internet
游戏和网络
Whether you’re a Redditor, a YouTuber, or more used to handling physical meeples (playing pieces in certain board games), this update has terms that’ll come in handy. Some don’t show the finer side of the human character: rage-quit is a verb meaning to ‘angrily abandon an activity or pursuit that has become frustrating’, and is especially used in relation to video games.
无论你是一个Redditor(Reddit用户)、YouTuber(YouTube用户),还是更经常玩meeples(‘米宝小木人’,某些桌游的配件)的人,这次的更新中都会有些你会用到的词。有一些展现了人性的不完美的一面:“rage-quit(怒退)”是一个动词,意思是“愤怒地退出一项已经变得烦人的活动”,尤其会用于电子游戏。
One reason you might rage-quit is because you are being pwned: that is, utterly defeated by an opponent. This informal term is used more often in video gaming, and supposedly resulted from a common mistyping of own with this sense, as a result of the proximity of p and o on a computer keyboard. Along with pwn comes pwnage (and ownage), being ‘the action or fact of utterly defeating an opponent or rival’.
你会“怒退”的原因之一可能会是你“pwned(一败涂地了)”:就是说,被对手打得永无翻身之日。这一非正式用语常用于电子游戏,据说是来源于常见的“own”输入错误,因为电脑键盘上p和o离得很近。和“pwn”一起的还有“pwnage”(和“ownage”),意思是“把对手打得永无翻身之日的行为或事实”。