逍遥学能 2010-02-26 22:58
原文:As luck would have it he was caught by the teacher again.
译文:正如幸运所有的那样,他又一次被老师逮个正着。
辨误:译文显然是照字面死译,意思不清楚。As luck would have it是个常见短语,这里的luck(原意为“运气”)实际上是中性的。该短语表示“碰巧”,可指“走运”也可指“背运”、“不走运”,其含义完全取决于上下文。
例如:
As luck would have it, no one was in the building when the bomb exploded.
幸亏炸弹爆炸时大楼里没有人。
luck在这句中是褒义,而在原句中则含有“倒霉”的意思。“幸运”一般要说as good luck would have it或by good luck。当然“倒霉”则可以说as ill / bad luck would have it 或by ill luck。所以,原句应译为:不幸的是,他又被老师逮个正着。
不过,有时候单独一个luck也可能是褒义,如in luck就是“交好运”的意思。又如:Finally, he came to luck and a beautiful girl fell in love with him.最后他交了好运/ 时来运转,一个美丽的姑娘爱上了他。
至于形容词lucky,则永远表示“幸运”的意思,如:a lucky day(好日子)。Luck的同义词for-tunes(注意,常用复数形式,因为单数形式多为“财产”之意;大写的Fortune则指“命运女神”)也有类似的情况,有good fortunes和bad fortunes之分,一个人的for-tunes可以high,也可以low。而Try on
e's fortune / luck中,fortune / luck是中性的,意为“碰碰运气看”、“冒险”;而形容词fortunate则总含有褒义。