笑是人们表达喜悦的表情,中国很早就有“笑一笑,十年少”的说法。带“笑”的短语,在英语里有很多,但并不都表示笑容。今天就给大家介绍一个。
A horse laugh,在英文里并不是指马在笑。作为一个俗语,a horse laugh是一种“表示不信任的嘲笑”。下面这个例子是说一些人对某个竞选议员的候选人表示不信任:
When this guy running for Congress told us how much money he'd save us taxpayers, we all gave him the horse laugh. We knew when he was in the state legislature he always voted for higher taxes.
当这个竞选国会议员席位的人对我们说,他会为我们这些缴税的人省多少钱的时候,我们大家都哄堂大笑。我们知道,在他担任州议员的期间,他老是投票赞成提高税收的。
我们再看个例子:
Harry thinks he's God's gift to women: that none of them can resist his charm. So we all gave him the horse laugh when he asked the new girl in class to go to a movie and she told him to get lost.
哈里总是以为自己具有莫大的魅力,女人们都为他倾倒,他就像上帝恩赐给女人的礼物一样。所以,当他请班里新来的那个女孩去看电影,而被那女孩毫不客气地拒绝了以后,我们都禁不住地嘲笑他。