English - The Real Deal

由于伦敦的恐怖袭击事件，这几天blast一词的出现频率特别高。相信大家都比较熟悉它最常用的意思——爆炸：

1. explosion: an explosion, or a sudden rush of air caused by an explosion.

大家不一定熟悉的是，blast还有一种俚语用法，而且意思和具有毁灭性的“爆炸”几乎相反。

6. good time: an enjoyable occasion of fun and laughter ( slang )

翻译成中文，“尽兴”或者“玩得很爽”应该八九不离十。举个例子：

Jay’s wedding was so much fun! We came up with all sorts of “dirty” games for the newlyweds, and everybody had a blast. （Jay的婚礼太有意思了！我们想出了各种各样的尴尬游戏逼新郎和新娘玩，每个人都很尽兴。）

值得注意的是，“We had a blast！”这样的句子有可能产生歧义。如果上下文交代不清的话，这句话既可以理解为“我们这里发生了爆炸”，也可以理解为“我们玩得很爽”。所以建议大家说话要注意连贯性，别没头没脑冒出模棱两可的句子。我的一贯做法是，在可能误会的情况下，干脆不用blast（改用bombing或者a lot of fun）。当然，如果你特别喜欢这个词、非用不可的话，可以加个literally以示区别。比如：

A: We had a blast last night!
B: Good for you!
A: What are you talking about? We literally had a blast!
B: Oops, I’m sorry.

P.S. A Letter To The Terrorists, From London (Warning: adult language. Reminds me of that kick ass letter.)

Bonus video: Fischerspooner - Never Win

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 10th, 2005 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Buzzword, Slang. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.