That quote comes from a book called The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase. Adjectives, writes the author, professional stickler Mark Forsyth, “absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.”
那个例子出自《雄辩的要素:如何完美地使用英语短语》这本书。坚持细节的专家马克·福赛斯在书中写道,形容词“当然必须要按照这个顺序来说:意见-尺寸-年龄-形状-颜色-起源-材料-用途名词。所以,你可以有一把古老的产自法国的可爱的绿色矩形银质小削刀。但是如果你打乱一点儿顺序,你听起来就像个疯子。”
Mixing up the above phrase does, as Forsyth writes, feel inexplicably wrong (a rectangular silver French old little lovely whittling green knife…), though nobody can say why. It’s almost like secret knowledge we all share.
就像福赛斯写的那样,把上述短语混在一起使用,莫名其妙地就会觉得错了(一个矩形银质产自法国的古老的小的可爱绿色削刀……),尽管没人能说清到底是为什么。这几乎就像是我们共同分享的隐秘知识。
Learn the language in a non-English-speaking country, however, and such “secrets” are taught in meticulous detail. Here’s a page from a book, published by Cambridge University Press, used regularly to teach English to non-native speakers. An English teacher in Hungary sent it to us.
【让老外都懵逼的语法】相关文章:
★ 创造你的运气
★ 双语阅读:法厄同
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2020-09-15
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