熟词生义，难免碰到，反复查询，最后剧情反转了 - 白话英语0116

题图：shoe last，鞋模子。你能想到last这个词还有这么个意思吗？

一、被困

6月14日，我在朋友圈中发了这么一条图文：

图一选文中，This simple这个说法令我心中一凛：不对，其中有诈！这个simple肯定是名词，解释成“这么简单”是无法形成合理句子的。怎么办？查字典！原来simple这个词还有一个不常用的名词意思，叫“草药”。。“我们”不应该由其他人所统治，遭受外族占领；“我们”必须被允许自治。这种“草药”已经被拌入“民族、国家”的概念中烘焙为一体了。

图1

图2

二、论辩

朋友圈发出后，朋友们纷纷点赞，称许我的好学，惊叹“又学到了”，我也洋洋自得，甚是开心。可是，晚上十点钟前后，一个不和谐的声音响了起来，原来是有人留言：

草药？你觉得草药放进去解释得通？这个草药是干嘛的？字典里这词作名词的时候不止一个意思。

以上就是这位朋友和我的朋友圈留言记录。这位朋友后续没再理睬我，可能是觉得我的观点不对，他不愿再多谈。那好，我自己来理一理整个词义辨别的过程：

simple作为名词，《新牛津英汉双解大辞典》安卓APP的解释如上图2所示，只有一个：草药，药草。听起来怪怪的，但我仔细看了看，其意思是“某种草药”，也即simple并不是草药的统称，而是具体的草药名称，和没药（myrrh）、百里香（thyme）等具备同等地位。simple还用来指提取这种草药的植株，也即药草。这个意思不对。

上面是韦氏词典APP的查询结果，我们可以看到simple作为名词有三个意思：1、平民、贱民、粗鲁、愚笨的人；2、草药、药草；3、混合物的一种成分；无法分析辨明的成分。

综合起来，我感觉到第三种意思的“无法分析辨明的成分”应该就是这里的simple所指。为什么呢，因为后文（在聊天时误为“前文”）曾经花了不小的篇幅来指出“we”——自认为是同一民族的人——的概念其实并不容易定义、分析：

To begin to understand this, ask yourself why, if everyone agrees that “we” are entitled to rule ourselves, it is often so hard to agree about who “we” are? The nationalist says, “We are a people, we share an ancestry.” But so does a family, to take the idea at its narrowest; and the whole species, at its widest, shares its ancestry, too. So in seeking nations, where should we draw the line? The people of Ashanti in Ghana, where I grew up, are supposed to share ancestry; but so is the wider world of Akan peoples to which we also belong. 

There’s not just Ashanti, but Akwapim, Akyem, Baule, Fante, Kwahu and a bunch more – none of which you’ve heard of either. (laughter) So if you were going for a nation state, perhaps Akan would make more sense than Ashanti: bigger may be better in modern nations, and there are twice as many Akan as Ashanti, their homes spread through southern Ghana and Ivory Coast.

But, following that thought, why not go for something even bigger, as Pan-Africanists argued, seeking to create a mega-state of all the people of African descent? Which should it be? There are no natural boundaries. So that is a first quandary, one of scale.

就此，我认为这里的simple应该解释为“未经辨明的成分（an unanalyzed constituent）。

三、反转

不过，既然这位朋友指出了一种可能性，那我就得去查证一下，于是我听了一下这一段：

Today, in what we like to think of as a post-imperial age, no political tenet commands more audible assent than that of national sovereignty. “We” aren’t to be ruled by others, captive to a foreign occupation; “we” must be allowed to rule ourselves. This simple idea is baked into the concept of the nation itself. It helped to propel the collapse of empires and the era of decolonization. Maps were redrawn to advance the cause; even in our own time, borders have given way to it. It remains a vaunted principle of our political order. And yet this ideal has an incoherence at its heart: and that’s what I want to explore today.

尽管我是很要面子的人，但事实摆在眼前，也只好去跟人家实事求是承认听错了。好在这位朋友很考虑我的感受，表示“其实我也很佩服你的，你听力真的很棒，你词汇量大概有三万了吧”（——其实当然远远没有，能有两万我就要笑开颜了）……这让我顿时感觉到社会主义大家庭的温暖！

四、反思

其实最近我就在一期一期听录音核对Reith Lectures的听力文字有什么问题，而且改正了不少错误，只是我意志不坚定，没有坚持到2016年的这几期，就这一松懈，导致了出错。看来人还是不能偷懒呀！