English - The Real Deal

想减肥，但不想控制饮食。怎么办？想体重不反弹，但又不想坚持锻炼。怎么办？

很遗憾我没有答案，不过倒是可以送大家一句话：You can’t have your cake and eat it too！

这句谚语按字面比较难以理解，但是把have和eat对调后就好办了——You can’t eat your cake and have it too。你不可以既把蛋糕吃掉又完整地保留它。用我们熟悉的话说，就是“鱼与熊掌不可兼得”。举个例子：

A: So I hear you are looking for a celebrity to endorse your product. （听说你准备找一位明星作产品代言人。）
B: Yeah. Gotta be a household name like Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow. And he has to be cheap. （是啊。必须是像成龙、周星驰那样家喻户晓的明星，而且得便宜点。）
A: Duh! You can’t have your cake and eat it too! （拜托！鱼与熊掌不可兼得。）

如果要表达“鱼与熊掌两者都想得”，将原句稍加改动即可——You want to have your cake and eat it too。这跟中文里的“又想马儿跑，又想马儿不吃草”是一回事。就我个人感觉而言，使用频率不如原句高，因为它往往带有讽刺口吻（潜台词就是“想得美！”），不像原句那样实话实说、比较容易让人接受。

Bonus video: Frankie J - How To Deal

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Idiom, Proverb. 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.