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為什麽英語中把懦弱膽小的人稱作chicken？雞是怎麽和膽小聯係到一起的？你也許不知道，這事和大名鼎鼎的莎翁也有關係。

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Anyone who refuses a double-dog dare is liable to be labeled a chicken. How dogs found their way into dare culture remains a bit of a mystery—but the reason cowards are called “chickens” is slightly clearer.

任何拒絕接受挑戰的人都很容易被貼上懦夫（chicken）的標簽。為什麽挑戰（double-dog dare）會和狗扯上關係現在還是一個謎，但是懦夫被稱為chicken的原因倒是略微明朗一些。

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest written instance of the word chicken in the craven sense comes from William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, circa 1616. "Forthwith they fly, Chickens,” he wrote, describing soldiers fleeing a battlefield. 根據《牛津英語詞典》的解釋，chicken一詞和懦夫含義相關的最早的書麵實例來自威廉ⷨŽŽ士比亞創作於1616年左右的《辛白林》。莎士比亞在這個劇本中形容逃離戰場的士兵時寫道：“他們隨即飛奔而逃，懦夫們。”

But as Grammarphobia reports, domestic fowl had been associated with an absence of bravery long before the 17th century. One play from around 1450 described a coward as a “henne-harte,” and poet John Skelton likened some spineless courtiers to “hen-hearted cuckolds” in his poem Why Come Ye Nat to Courte circa 1529.

但是據“語法恐懼症”網站介紹，早在17世紀前，雞就和膽小關聯在一起。創作於1450年左右的一部戲劇將懦夫描述為“母雞心髒”，詩人約翰ⷦ–磊𑧈𞩠“在他創作於1529年左右的詩歌《為何你們不上朝？》中將一些諂媚無骨的朝臣比作“雞心王八”。

Hens may have seemed especially timid because roosters were typically characterized as plucky. If you were a leader, a dauntless warrior, or just a dominant presence in the mid-16th century, someone might call you a “cock” (as a compliment). And when people first started using the term hen to tag submissive or cowardly folks in the 1600s, they were often juxtaposing it with cock.

或許因為公雞通常都被描述得很大膽，從而讓母雞相形之下顯得特別膽小。如果你是16世紀中葉的一個領導者、一個無畏的戰士或一個重要人物，有人可能會叫你“公雞”（作為讚美）。17世紀人們剛開始用母雞來指代順從懦弱的人時，通常都會與公雞一詞並列。

Take, for example, the closing stanza of a late 17th-century ballad known as Taylor’s Lamentation:

舉17世紀晚期的一首民謠《泰勒的悲歎》的末節為例：

"Ever since then she bears such a sway,

That I am forc’d her Laws to obey.

She is the Cock and I am the Hen,

This is my case, Oh! pity me then.”

“從那以後她就說一不二，

她的命令我都得服從。

她是公雞而我成了母雞，

這就是我的命運，哎，可憐我吧。”

The sexist subtext here isn’t exactly hidden: female chickens, like female humans, are characterized as subdued and faint-hearted, taking cues from their valorous and powerful male counterparts. Any time the script is flipped, pity is in order for the poor man. Fortunately, the less gendered phrase (hens and roosters are all chickens) won out over time, though it’s not totally clear why. Chicken meaning fool—which may have been an offshoot of goose-as-fool—first started showing up in print around 1600. So it seems possible that the coward connotation caught on partly because the term also worked as a more general insult, too.

在這裏字裏行間都可以看出帶有性別歧視的隱含意思：母雞和女人一樣被刻畫成順從膽小的形象，隻能聽命於勇敢強大的雄性。隻要腳本一反轉，可憐的男人就應該受到同情。幸運的是，隨著時間流逝chicken這個不帶有強烈性別色彩的詞勝出了，母雞和公雞都統稱為chicken，盡管原因不是很清楚。17世紀前後，用雞（chicken）來指代傻瓜的用法首次出現在印刷品中，這可能是鵝帶有的傻瓜含義的衍生用法。所以雞帶有的懦夫含義一部分可能是因為這個詞同時也具有更普遍的侮辱含義。

英文來源：Mental Floss

翻譯&編輯：丹妮

來源：中國日報網

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