密歇根新闻广播 情人节即将来临 还记得你们第一次"打得火热"吗

It's almost Valentine's Day, and we here at That's What They Say encourage you to think about the ones you love. Ideally with a Lionel Richie album playing in the background.

As you prepare to indulge your significant other or maybe your best friend with cards, candy and flowers, think back to when you first met.

If you hit it off right away, some might say the two of you were "like a house on fire."

Obviously, a burning house generally isn't a good thing. But a relationship like a house on fire means you got along as fast as a house burns, especially one with a thatched roof.

As far as we can tell, this idiom dates back to the early 19th century. Though it's most often used to describe relationships that are immediately successful, it can also be used to describe doing anything really fast.

This got us wondering about other instances where we use "fire" as a verb.

For example, when someone is permanently¹ dismissed from their job, why do we say they were fired?

In its earliest instances, the verb "to fire" literally² means to set something on fire. You could also use it to talk about using fire to drive out a person or animal.

So how did "to fire" make the leap from actual flames to pink-slipping someone?

The key is found when firearms come along and firing a weapon becomes a thing. That's where we get metaphors³ like "fire a question" or "fire a look" at someone.

By the late 19th century, "to fire" comes to mean to eject or expel someone or something. In the workplace, a person who's been fired has been ejected from the office, the same way a bullet is ejected or fired from a gun.

1 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

2 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

3 metaphors   

隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I can only represent it to you by metaphors. 我只能用隐喻来向你描述它。
• Thus, She's an angel and He's a lion in battle are metaphors. 因此她是天使，他是雄狮都是比喻说法。