英语听书《白鲸记》 第1期

  ETYMOLOGY¹. 

(Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher² to a Grammar School) 

 The pale Usher hreadbare in coat,heart,body,and brain;I see him now.He was ever dusting his old lexicons³ and grammars,with a queer handkerchief,mockingly embellished⁴ with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world.He loved to dust his old grammars;it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality. 

 While you take in hand to school others,and to teach them by what name a whale fish is to be called in our tongue leaving out,through ignorance,the letter H,which almost alone maketh the signification of the word,you deliver that which is not true.ACKLUYT 

 WHALE .... Sw.and Dan. HVAL.This animal is named from roundness or rolling;for in Dan. HVALT is arched or vaulted⁵.EBSTER'S DICTIONARY 

 WHALE .... It is more immediately from the Dut.and Ger. WALLEN;A.S. WALW IAN,to roll,to wallow.猂ICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY 

 KETOS,GREEK. 

 CETUS,LATIN. 

 WHOEL,ANGLO SAXON. 

 HVALT,DANISH. 

 WAL,DUTCH. 

 HWAL,SWEDISH. 

 WHALE,ICELANDIC. 

 WHALE,ENGLISH. 

 BALEINE,FRENCH. 

 BALLENA,SPANISH.PEKEE NUEE-NUEE,FEGEE.PEHEE NUEE-NUEE,ERROMANGOAN. 

 EXTRACTS(Supplied by a Sub Sub-Librarian). 

 It will be seen that this mere⁶ painstaking⁷ burrower⁸ and grub worm of a poor devil of a Sub Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street stalls of the earth,picking up whatever random⁹ allusions¹⁰ to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever,sacred or profane¹¹.Therefore you must not,in every case at least,take the higgledy piggledy whale statements,however authentic,in these extracts,for veritable gospel cetology.Far from it.As touching¹² the ancient authors generally,as well as the poets here appearing,these extracts are solely¹³ valuable or entertaining,as affording a glancing bird's eye view of what has been promiscuously¹⁴ said,thought,fancied,and sung of Leviathan,by many nations and generations,including our own. 

1 etymology   

n.语源；字源学

参考例句：

• The hippies' etymology is contentious.关于嬉皮士的语源是有争议的。
• The origin of OK became the Holy Grail of etymology.OK的出典成了词源学梦寐以求的圣杯。

2 usher   

n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员

参考例句：

• The usher seated us in the front row.引座员让我们在前排就座。
• They were quickly ushered away.他们被迅速领开。

3 lexicons   

n.词典( lexicon的名词复数 )；专门词汇

参考例句：

• I have a discipline: medical, sports, and advertising lexicons. 另一些是专科词典，如医学词典、体育词典、广告词典等等。 来自互联网

4 embellished   

v.美化( embellish的过去式和过去分词 )；装饰；修饰；润色

参考例句：

• The door of the old church was embellished with decorations. 老教堂的门是用雕饰美化的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The stern was embellished with carvings in red and blue. 船尾饰有红色和蓝色的雕刻图案。 来自辞典例句

5 vaulted   

adj.拱状的

参考例句：

• She vaulted over the gate and ran up the path. 她用手一撑跃过栅栏门沿着小路跑去。
• The formal living room has a fireplace and vaulted ceilings. 正式的客厅有一个壁炉和拱形天花板。

6 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

7 painstaking   

adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的

参考例句：

• She is not very clever but she is painstaking.她并不很聪明，但肯下苦功夫。
• Through years of our painstaking efforts,we have at last achieved what we have today.大家经过多少年的努力，才取得今天的成绩。

8 burrower   

借钱人； 借用人，剽窃者

参考例句：

• The borrower defaulted, and the bank instituted a foreclosure suit. 借贷人违约，银行就制定了一个取消赎回权的诉讼。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Book and borrower numbers are encoded on to bar-coded labels. 图书和借书者的编号编到了条形码标记上。

9 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

10 allusions   

暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We should not use proverbs and allusions indiscriminately. 不要滥用成语典故。
• The background lent itself to allusions to European scenes. 眼前的情景容易使人联想到欧洲风光。

11 profane   

adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污

参考例句：

• He doesn't dare to profane the name of God.他不敢亵渎上帝之名。
• His profane language annoyed us.他亵渎的言语激怒了我们。

12 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

13 solely   

adv.仅仅，唯一地

参考例句：

• Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
• The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。

14 promiscuously   

adv.杂乱地，混杂地

参考例句：

• It promiscuously plunders other languages and delights in neologisms. 它杂乱地掠夺其它语言，并以增加新词为乐。 来自互联网
• It's like biology: an ecosystem where microbes are promiscuously swapping genes and traits, evolution speeds up. 就像生物学：一个一群微生物混杂地交换基因和特性的生态系统，进化加速了。 来自互联网