一个自由译者的生命记录

hassle- -

                                      

It is difficult to believe that there were no hassles before 1945, but that is the year in which the noun  hassle is first recorded in English. The origins of this word might be considered a hassle for the etymologist. An English dialect word,  hassle, meaning “to hack at, cut with a blunt knife and with a sawing motion,” is recorded at the end of the 19th century. A Southern dialect word,  hassle, “to pant, breathe heavily,” is also a possible source. A more popular notion has been that  hassle is a blend, but here again we have a hassle. Three separate possibilities have been proposed, a combination of  har ass and hu stle, haggle and tu ssle, and  haggle and wre stle. Given all these possibilities, it is clear why words such as  hassle end up with the etymology “origin unknown.”
很难相信1945年以前没有麻烦这个词，但就在那一年 hassle这个名词第一次被记录在英语中。词源学家认为这个词的来源是争吵。一个英语方言词 hassle的意思是“砍，用一个钝的刀锯”，在19世纪被记录下来。一个南部的方言词 hassle“喘气，重呼吸”也可能是它的来源。但更普遍的是认为 hassle是一个合成词，但我们对此又有了异议。词源学家提出的三种不同的可能性： har ass与hu stle的结合、haggle与tu ssle的结合和 haggle与wre stle的结合。尽管有这么多的可能性，但很显然，象 hassle这样的词仍“无源可溯”

- 作者： 翰唐 访问统计：　2005年08月7日, 星期日 22:46 加入博采