1.
汉语里常说狼吞虎咽,那么英语里这个词就是Dog,或者是wolf down something
例子:He dogged his hamburger and ran out the door to catch the bus.
在英联邦国家,如果提到狗食就会让人想到乱七八糟的一种状态,因为狗什么都吃;再者,喂狗的食品也不用事先切好,多大一块儿,狗都能吃。这里就不放照片了,看了之后整个人都感觉不好了。所以跟狗食相关的说法,一般都指做得不好,或者非常糟糕的状态。是一种很不正式的说法。
2
(like) a dog's breakfast/dinner
大杂烩,一团糟,非常混乱=something that has been done very badly
例子
She tried to cut her hair and made a real dog's breakfast of it.
You should have seen the ceiling after he'd finished painting it. It was a complete dog's breakfast.
I really need to clean out my closet—it's starting to look like a dog's breakfast in there.
同理,做狗食的人也是非常失败
3
make a dog's breakfast/dinner (of something)
彻底失败,彻底搞砸啦=To make a mess of or completely ruin something.
I thought I could trust Jim to finish the business proposal, but he made a dog's breakfast of the whole thing.
I thought I could trust Jim to finish the business proposal, but he made a dog's dinner of the whole thing!
4
done up/dressed up like a dog's dinner
指穿得花里胡哨的,不合时宜。跟衣服本身的价钱无关,主要是效果让人感觉不对
=wearing clothes which make you look silly when you have tried to dress for a formal occasion,
例子:There she was, all dressed up like a dog's dinner, in a ridiculous frilly shirt and a skirt that was far too short.
与之相对,穿得漂亮穿得光鲜亮丽的说法是:dress up like a peacock
5
虽然dress up和put on感觉很近,但是换个国家,意思就完全不一样了。在美国内战的时候,有钱人家的女士通常都养狗做为宠物,lap dog,那种放在大腿上抱着的狗。所以后来就用put on the dog来比喻假装很富有。
put on the dog
耍派头、摆架子,在正式场合穿得非常好,假装自己很富有。=act in a snobbish manner
例子: Frank's really putting on the dog for the big party Friday night. They really put on the ritz for us.
类似的说法 put on the ritz 摆阔气(ritz本身就是“炫耀”的意思)
而Put on airs主要是指这个人自认为了不起,假装自己比别人强的行为。跟阔气之类的穿着打扮没有直接关系。
6
据说全世界最好吃最便宜的狗食是美国生产的。所以狗食在美国没有任何贬义,反倒让人想到品牌。在美国公司内部测试叫
eat (one's) own dog food=dogfooding
后来引申到软件内部测试里。内部测试可以为一家公司展示信息通信技术自身产品信心的一种方式,和一种方式来测试它在现实世界中使用。因此内部测试既可用作质量控制也可以起到一种广告的作用。
有两个可能的出处:在上个世纪80年代 Alpo dog food的广告里,演员Lorne Green用自己的狗吃这种产品,来促销。另外一个是Kal Kan Pet Food的总裁在股东大会上说自己吃了自己公司出产的狗粮。
推而广之,一个软件公司的内部测试,主要测试研发的缺陷,在发行前确保终端用户的可操作性。这个短语被写进很多公司的报告和公司内部信件里。
例子:We didn't have time to eat our own dog food before the new operating system's release, so I'm worried it may still have a lot of glitches that haven't been accounted for yet.
这种说法得到了很多人的反对。对于内部测试这件事情本身,也有很多人质疑,因为工程师掌握的信息跟终端用户掌握的信息不一致,所以很有可能测试的时候没发现问题,但是用的时候会出问题。另外有的人不喜欢用狗做比喻,所以就有了如下的说法:
比如说IBM用“eating our own cook”
Pegasystems用"drinking our own champagne"
还有人把dogfooding这个词改成icecreaming,就是为了听起来想“消费”
学短语和谚语是一件很有趣的事。希望你读我的系列文章不仅能够记住这些英文短语和谚语,而且能够从相关的故事中体会到异国文化,一些书本上没有,生活里必知的知识。
本文为原创,未经作者同意不得转载,谢谢