The Weird Plurals in English英語(yǔ)中的古怪名詞復(fù)數(shù)

⊙ By Kory Stamper ⊙ 翻譯：Portia

Word Story 英語(yǔ)話廊

The Weird Plurals in English英語(yǔ)中的古怪名詞復(fù)數(shù)

⊙ By Kory Stamper ⊙ 翻譯：Portia

You may have seen the video in which I discussed the plurals of“octopus[章魚(yú)].” After itposted[發(fā)布],I got aslew[大量]of emails that said,“But this doesn’t explain all these other weird plurals.”

English is amongrel[混合物]of a language.It began life as a hard-nosedGermanic[日耳曼語(yǔ)的]dialect,wasoverrun[侵占]by French-speaking Normans,had a thing for Latin and Greek borrowings,collected whateverlinguistic[語(yǔ)言學(xué)的]crumbs[少許]fell out of itssea-faring[航海的]merchant[商人]class’s coats,picked up house,moved across a few oceans,eavesdropped[偷聽(tīng)]on the natives,settled down and invited its poor European and eastern cousins to live with it,and then learned how to use a computer.You can’t expect a language that’s been that well-travelled to be regular.

Goose[鵝]and moose[駝鹿]are perfect examples of English’s “take what it can from wherever it can” history.Goose is a word that dates back about a thousand years to the old Englishgos,and in old English,the plural ofgoswasges.Both the singular and plural forms were taken into Middle English and are preserved in modern English as goose and geese.

Moose,on the other hand,is arelatively[相對(duì)地]recent addition to the language.It’s about 400 years old and is borrowed directly fromAlgonquian[阿爾貢金語(yǔ)],a North American native language that has noresemblance[相似之處]to old English.Why would we give moose the old English plural meese? Well,we wouldn’t,because,by the time moose came into English,we made plurals by adding an “s” or “es” to the ends of nouns.So,then,why is the plural of moose moose? Because,in English,we tend to use the singular form as the plural when talking aboutgame[獵物]animals like deer andelk[加拿大馬鹿].The final “s” in mooses got dropped,andvoila[瞧]! Two moose.

English is a dynamic,changing“critter[異常動(dòng)物]” and,contrary to what some people may think,it always has been.Those irregular plurals are evidence of the richness of ourprofligate[揮霍、放蕩],weird language.

參考譯文

你們可能已經(jīng)看過(guò)我解釋octopus一詞復(fù)數(shù)形式的視頻了。視頻發(fā)布后，我收到了許多電子郵件。人們?cè)卩]件中說(shuō)：“但這視頻并不能說(shuō)明其他古怪的名詞復(fù)數(shù)存在的原因啊。”

英語(yǔ)是一門混合語(yǔ)言。它一開(kāi)始是頑強(qiáng)的日耳曼方言，后來(lái)慘遭操法語(yǔ)的諾曼人蹂躪，特別喜歡借鑒拉丁語(yǔ)和希臘語(yǔ)，然后又從出海遠(yuǎn)航的商人那里收集各國(guó)語(yǔ)言的只言片語(yǔ)；接下來(lái)它收拾家當(dāng)，數(shù)次飄洋過(guò)海，在偷聽(tīng)了各地原著民的談話后，終于安定下來(lái)，并把歐洲和東邊的窮表親邀來(lái)一起過(guò)日子，最終還學(xué)會(huì)了怎么用電腦。對(duì)這樣一門曾經(jīng)走南闖北的語(yǔ)言，你總不能指望它會(huì)按規(guī)則行事吧。

隨時(shí)隨地兼收并蓄是英語(yǔ)的歷史特色，而goose和moose正是反映這一特色的絕好例子。Goose一詞的歷史有大約一千年。在古英語(yǔ)中，它原為gos，復(fù)數(shù)是ges。Gos的單數(shù)和復(fù)數(shù)形式為中世紀(jì)英語(yǔ)所吸收，并在現(xiàn)代英語(yǔ)中以goose和geese的形式保存下來(lái)。

而moose呢，它是英語(yǔ)中相對(duì)較新的成員。它有約四百年的歷史，是直接從阿爾貢金語(yǔ)拿來(lái)的外來(lái)詞，而阿爾貢金語(yǔ)是一門北美的原著民語(yǔ)言，與古英語(yǔ)沒(méi)有任何相似之處。為什么要讓moose有古英語(yǔ)式的復(fù)數(shù)形式meese呢——呵呵，我們不會(huì)那么做，因?yàn)樵趍oose一詞加入英語(yǔ)這個(gè)大家庭的時(shí)候，名詞單數(shù)變復(fù)數(shù)的方式已經(jīng)變成了在名詞后面加s或es。既然這樣，那為什么moose的復(fù)數(shù)形式是moose呢？因?yàn)橛⒄Z(yǔ)在談?wù)摣C物類動(dòng)物（如deer和elk）時(shí)，往往會(huì)讓單數(shù)和復(fù)數(shù)保持一致，于是，mooses最后面的s被拿掉了——就這樣，moose的復(fù)數(shù)形式還是moose。

英語(yǔ)是一只生機(jī)勃勃、不斷變化的“怪物”，與許多人的想法相反，這本就是它的常態(tài)。那些不規(guī)則名詞復(fù)數(shù)正是英語(yǔ)既放蕩、古怪，又異常豐富多彩的例證。