VOA慢速英語:“kick”這個詞的相關(guān)用法

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

這里是美國之音慢速英語詞匯掌故。

From birth to death, the word kick has been given an important part in expressing human experience. The proud and happy mother feels the first signs of life kicking inside her womb. And that same life -- many years later -- comes to its end in a widely-used expression, to kick the bucket, meaning to die.

從出生到死亡，單詞kick在表達(dá)人生經(jīng)歷上占了重要的一部分。幸福驕傲的母親最初感受到生命的信號就是孩子在她子宮里的kicking(踢)。然而，同樣的生命，多年以后，到生命結(jié)束的時候普遍的表達(dá)方式是“kick the bucket”，意思是死。

The expression to kick the bucket is almost two hundred years old. One belief is that it started when an English stableman committed suicide by hanging himself while standing on a pail, or bucket. He put a rope around his neck and tied it to a beam in the ceiling, and then kicked the bucket away from under him.

kick the bucket(死，翹辮子)的表達(dá)方式大約有200年的歷史。該詞匯源自一位英國馬夫站在桶上把自己吊死，他把繩子套在脖子上系到屋頂?shù)牧荷希缓筇唛_腳下的桶。

After a while, to die in any way was called kicking the bucket.

之后，任何方式的死亡都被稱為kicking the bucket。

Another old expression that comes from England is to kick over the traces, meaning to resist the commands of one’s parents, or to oppose or reject authority. Traces were the chains that held a horse or mule to a wagon or plow. Sometimes, an animal rebelled and kicked over the traces.

另一個源自英國的短語kick over the traces(掙脫羈絆，反抗)，意思是反抗父母的命令，或抵抗拒絕權(quán)利。trace韁繩是把馬或騾子拴在馬車或犁上的鏈子，有時，動物反抗就會掙脫韁繩。

The word kick sometimes is used to describe a complaint or some kind of dissatisfaction. Workers, for example, kick about long hours and low pay.

有時kick用來描述抱怨或某種程度的不滿。例如，工人們kick about(抱怨)工時過長而工資太低。

There are times when workers are forced to kick back some of their wages to their employers as part of their job. This kickback is illegal. So is another kind of kickback: a secret payment made by a supplier to an official who buys supplies for a government or company.

有時工人被迫從工資中kick back(退回)一些給雇主。這種kickback(回扣)是非法的，所以另一種回扣：供應(yīng)商給為政府或公司購買設(shè)備人的秘密款項(xiàng)。

Kick around is a phrase that is heard often in American English. A person who is kicked around is someone who is treated badly. Usually, he is not really being kicked by somebody’s foot. He is just not being treated with the respect that all of us want.

kick around(粗暴而輕率地對待某人)在美式英語中經(jīng)常聽到。一個人被kicked around是指被粗暴地對待，通常不是說他真的被某人踢了，只是沒有受到我們希望的尊敬對待。

A person who has kicked around for most of his life is someone who has spent his life moving from place to place. In this case, kicking around means moving often from one place to another.

一個人大部分的時光kick around(到處流浪，到處是游蕩)指他一生都在從一個地方搬到另一個地方。這樣，kick around意思就是經(jīng)常從一個地方換到另一個地方。

Kick around has a third meaning when you use it with the word idea. When you kick around an idea, you are giving that idea some thought.

kick around和idea一起用還有第三種意思，當(dāng)你kick around an idea就是再三考慮。

There is no physical action when you kick a person upstairs, although the pain can be as strong. You kick a person upstairs by removing him from an important job and giving him a job that sounds more important, but really is not.

當(dāng)你kick a person upstairs(明升暗降)則是沒有實(shí)際位置，盡管疼痛如此強(qiáng)烈。明升暗降是將他從重要的工作崗位撤掉，安排到聽起來更重要實(shí)際則不然的工作位置上。

Still another meaning of the word kick is to free oneself of a bad habit, such as smoking cigarettes. Health campaigns urge smokers to kick the habit.

kick的另一個意思是將自己從不良習(xí)慣中擺脫出來，諸如吸煙。健康運(yùn)動敦促吸煙者kick the habit(

戒除嗜好，戒除陋習(xí))。