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What does that mean? 你真的瞭解這個慣用語嗎?
【英文學習】
很多字詞並非表面所見的意思,字詞的組合會產生不同的解釋。這樣的慣用法,我們稱之為「比喻」。一個成功的比喻,作者本身必須相當瞭解字詞的源起。以下的句子為讀者介紹一個比喻及其來源。
Imagery buries itself in language and takes on new meaning. The transplanted and transformed sets of words are called “figures of speech.” For a figure of speech to be effective, however, a writer must first understand the original meaning of the phrase. The following sentence contains a common figure of speech. Its original meaning is explained.

“Ernest Hemingway’s Robert Jordan is introduced to readers on a hillside and ultimately dies on one, a tiny glimpse of the thread of life stitching together For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
「海明威筆下的羅伯˙喬丹在山丘上出場,最後也在山丘上嚥氣,由此可一窺《戰地鐘聲》賴以維繫的生命線。」

A needle and stitching thread surely are among the most ancient of tools. They are employed to join two objects or two parts of a single object. The thread is woven through one edge of each of the two parts and pulled tight, drawing together the parts and holding them in place. Sometimes the weaving is done decoratively because it will be visible in the finished product. Sometimes the joining weave is hidden. In either case, the thread’s strength is in its repetitive coiled shape, which stoutly resists undoing except by cutting of individual coils or brute-force ripping.
針線是最古老的工具,用以縫合兩個物品,或一個物品不同的兩部份。織線穿過兩物品的邊緣、拉緊,就能縫合、固定兩物品。有時候繡線是用來裝飾,會露出成品表面,有時候縫線則藏了起來。無論是哪一種用途,織線由於一再纏繞,所以能縫合物品,堅韌而不會裂開,除非剪斷一條條縫線或猛力撕開。

In writing of the “thread of life stitching together” this novel, a literary critic uses thread as a metaphor to suggest the book has a unifying theme. That is, chapter after chapter, regardless of what is happening on the page, an underlying idea runs through the conversations and actions. Sometimes it is plainly spoken in soliloquy; other times it is hidden in symbol and character. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, the “thread of life” that unifies the disparate parts of the civil war novel is, ironically, death in its many variations.
例句評論小說 “thread of life stitching together”( 賴以維繫的生命線),以縫線作為隱喻,暗示小說有條共同的主題。翻過一章又一章,無論書頁上情節如何搬演,所有對話與行為蘊含同一個主旨,有時以獨白講明,有時隱藏在象徵與角色中。說來諷刺,《戰地鐘聲》這本內戰小說裡,維繫不同章節的生命線,竟是不同形式的死亡。


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