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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.
“The student was undaunted by the scope of the work and turned in a groundbreaking paper on 19th-century Polynesian authors.”
「這位學生並未因研究範圍廣泛而卻步，最後交出一篇開創性的論文，探討十九世紀波里尼西亞的作家。」
Some figures of speech are so tightly interwoven into the language that they almost have lost their original meaning. “Groundbreaking” is such a word. It originated in the rural parts of the world and referred to the opening of sodded pasture to cultivation via plowing—that is, the breaking apart of the rooted soil and burying of existing plant growth so that a sower or implanter of seed can introduce a new crop. A plowed, or broken-apart, field is transformed. It is changed in character from a static condition to a growth condition with a whole new future.
有些經常使用的修辭手法與日常語言已密不可分，幾乎已經偏離了原本的意義，“Groundbreaking”（開創的）就是一個例子。這個詞原本出自農業社會，指犁田翻土以供耕作，讓底層的土壤崩解，使生長的植物埋入土中，用來播種、耕植新的作物。土地經過墾殖而分解，就像是從原本靜止的狀態，轉換為生氣勃勃的新生狀態。
In the given sentence, “groundbreaking” has nothing to do with the soil. Rather, it uses the word to describe the change wrought by an academic paper. New scholarly “ground” was broken. The paper introduced new thinking or new information to a cadre of literary thinkers. It dramatically departed from previous scholarship in a way that demonstrated fresh thinking or an innovative approach. By so doing, the writer changed the static character of scholarly understanding of a pantheon of writers and opened the way for a future reordering of the literary constellation.
例句中，“groundbreaking” 與土壤無關，而是用來形容論文造就了變革。原本的學術土壤崩解，論文為文學圈主要學者帶來新的思考方向和新資訊，與過去的學識想法極為不同，想法極富新意，研究模式極為創新。也就是說，作者一改學術界過去對偉大作家僵化的偏見，為日後的才子俊秀開創嶄新的研究先河。
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.
“The student was undaunted by the scope of the work and turned in a groundbreaking paper on 19th-century Polynesian authors.”
「這位學生並未因研究範圍廣泛而卻步，最後交出一篇開創性的論文，探討十九世紀波里尼西亞的作家。」
Some figures of speech are so tightly interwoven into the language that they almost have lost their original meaning. “Groundbreaking” is such a word. It originated in the rural parts of the world and referred to the opening of sodded pasture to cultivation via plowing—that is, the breaking apart of the rooted soil and burying of existing plant growth so that a sower or implanter of seed can introduce a new crop. A plowed, or broken-apart, field is transformed. It is changed in character from a static condition to a growth condition with a whole new future.
有些經常使用的修辭手法與日常語言已密不可分，幾乎已經偏離了原本的意義，“Groundbreaking”（開創的）就是一個例子。這個詞原本出自農業社會，指犁田翻土以供耕作，讓底層的土壤崩解，使生長的植物埋入土中，用來播種、耕植新的作物。土地經過墾殖而分解，就像是從原本靜止的狀態，轉換為生氣勃勃的新生狀態。
In the given sentence, “groundbreaking” has nothing to do with the soil. Rather, it uses the word to describe the change wrought by an academic paper. New scholarly “ground” was broken. The paper introduced new thinking or new information to a cadre of literary thinkers. It dramatically departed from previous scholarship in a way that demonstrated fresh thinking or an innovative approach. By so doing, the writer changed the static character of scholarly understanding of a pantheon of writers and opened the way for a future reordering of the literary constellation.
例句中，“groundbreaking” 與土壤無關，而是用來形容論文造就了變革。原本的學術土壤崩解，論文為文學圈主要學者帶來新的思考方向和新資訊，與過去的學識想法極為不同，想法極富新意，研究模式極為創新。也就是說，作者一改學術界過去對偉大作家僵化的偏見，為日後的才子俊秀開創嶄新的研究先河。
