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形容词,与专业程序员相关的。
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一旦深入到词根层级,我们还会发现一些杂乱无章的情形,即不规则的复数形态(例如“mouse-mice”“man-men”)和不规则的过去时态(例如“drink-drank”“seek-sought”)。不规则的形式常常结伴而行,比如说“drink-drank”“sink-sank”“shrink-shrank”“stink-stank”“sing-sang”“ring-rang”“spring-sprang”“swim-swam”“sit-sat”,或者“blow-blew”“know-knew”“grow-grew”“throw-threw”“fly-flew”和“slay-slew”。这种情况的出现,是因为数千年前的原始印欧语(即包括英语在内的大多数欧洲语言的祖语)拥有这样一个规则:通过元音的替换变成过去时态,就像我们现在在词尾添加“-ed”的规则一样。现代英语中的不规则动词或者说“强变化”(strong)动词只不过是古老规则的化石,而规则本身早已不复存在。大部分看起来本应归于不规则动词之列的动词被粗暴地排除在外,正如我们在下面这首英文打油诗中所看到的情况:
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Sally Salter, she was a young teacher who taught,
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And her friend, Charley Church, was a preacher who praught;
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Though his enemies called him a screecher, who scraught.
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His heart, when he saw her, kept sinking, and sunk;
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And his eye, meeting hers, began winking, and wunk;
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While she in her turn, fell to thinking, and thunk.
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In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke,
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To seek with his lips what his heart long had soke,
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So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke.
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The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole;
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At the feet where he wanted to kneel, then he knole;
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And he said, “I feel better than ever I fole.”
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人们只能通过死记硬背的方法来记住每个不规则动词的过去时态,不过,正如这首打油诗所显示的,人们可以敏锐地察觉出其中的变化模式,并将其运用到新的词语上,以制造出幽默的效果,就像在“官腔”(Haigspeak)或者“黑话”(hackspeak)中一样。我们当中的许多人会忍不住地使用“sneeze-snoze”“squeeze-squoze”“take-took-tooken”“shit-shat”等变化形式,觉得它们更加精巧可爱,而这正是以“freeze-froze”“break-broke-broken”“sit-sat”为类比对象。在《疯狂英语》一书中,莱德勒撰写了一篇题为《鸡舍狐狸》(Foxen in the Henhice)的短文,对英语中的不规则复数形式进行了疯狂恶搞:例如“booth-beeth”“harmonica-harmonicae”“mother-methren”“drum-dra”“Kleenex-Kleenices”和“bathtub-bathtubim”。计算机黑客则肆无忌惮地使用“faxen”“VAXen”“boxen”“meece”和“Macinteesh”等词语。《新闻周刊》(Newsweek)曾经把身着白色镶石服装的拉斯维加斯表演者称为“Elvii”(“猫王”们)。在连环画《史努比》(Peanuts)中,莱纳斯(Linus)的老师欧特玛(Othmar)小姐要求班上的学生用蛋壳制作“igli”(爱斯基摩人用雪块砌成的圆顶小屋,单数形式为“igloo”)模型。玛吉·沙利文(Maggie Sullivan)曾在《纽约时报》上撰稿,要求对更多的动词进行强变化,以达到“强化”英语的目的:
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Subdue(征服),subdid,subdone:Nothing could have subdone him the way her violet eyes subdid him.
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没什么能像她的蓝紫色眼睛那样把他征服了。
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Seesaw(玩跷跷板),sawsaw,seensaw:While the children sawsaw, the old man thought of long ago when he had seensaw.
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当孩子们玩翘翘板时,老人想起自己玩翘翘板已经是很久以前的事了。
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Pay(付出),pew,pain:He had pain for not choosing a wife more carefully.
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择妻不慎让他付出了代价。
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Ensnare(诱惑),ensnore,ensnorn: In the 60’s and 70’s, Sominex ads ensnore many who had never been ensnorn by ads before.
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在20世纪60~70年代间,盐酸苯海拉明片剂的广告诱惑了许多之前未受广告诱惑的人。
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Commemoreat(纪念),commemorate, commemoreaten:At the banquet to commemoreat Herbert Hoover, spirits were high, and by the end of the evening many other Republicans had been commemoreaten.
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在纪念赫伯特·胡佛的宴会上,人们情绪高涨,到晚宴结束的时候,许多其他的共和党人也一并受到纪念。
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