作家發明的常用詞

凡路

Its pretty rare to be able to trace1 a words invention back to a single person. Most words develop slowly， over time， and are shaped by entire cultures， not individual people.

And then there are the words that were invented by authors. This occasionally happens when an author combines root words from different languages， old names， and/or nonsense syllables to create character names， place names， or names for concepts that have never been imagined before， and slowly those names creep into common usage.2

Here are six common English words that were first invented by authors.

1. Chortle， Lewis Carroll3

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock？ 4

Come to my arms， my beamish5 boy！

O frabjous day！ Callooh！ Callay！”6

He chortled in his joy.

Carrolls Jabberwocky—which first appeared as a poem read by Alice in Through the Looking-Glass， and What Alice Found There， the sequel to Alices Adventures in Wonderland—is chock-full of7 nonsense words， but only one of them made the jump to the English language. Perhaps thats because “chortled”suggests both“chuckled”and “snorted，”making it easy to intuit the meaning in a way you cant quite do with“brillig.”8

2. Pandemonium， John Milton9

Mean while the winged Haralds by command

Of Sovran power， with awful Ceremony

And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim

A solemn Councel forthwith to be held

At Pand?monium， the high Capital

Of Satan and his Peers…10

In Paradise Lost， Milton named the capital city of Hell Pand?monium， but he didnt invent the name out of thin air11. He used classical roots： the Greek “pan，”meaning all，and the Latin “demonium，” or demons12. Together they mean “the place with all the demons.” Today， of course， pandemonium describes the chaos that results when all hell breaks loose.13

3. Malapropism， Richard Brinsley Sheridan14

Ill take another opportunity of paying my respects to Mrs. Malaprop， when she shall treat me， as long as she chooses， with her select words so ingeniously15 misapplied， without being mispronounced.

Mrs. Malaprop is a character in the 18th-century Irish play The Rivals who delights in elaborate， polysyllabic words and constantly misuses them.16 “He is the very pineapple17 of politeness！” she cries. “His physiognomy is so grammatical！”18 Her name comes from the French phrase mal à propos，which means inopportunely19 or inappropriately， but in English a “malapropism” is now specifically a misused word， in honor of Mrs. Malaprop.

4. Robot， Karel ?apek20

What young Rossum invented was a worker with the least needs possible. He had to make him simpler. He threw out everything that wasnt of direct use in his work， thats to say， he threw out the man and put in the robot. Miss Glory， robots are not people. They are mechanically 21 much better than we are， they have an amazing ability to understand things， but they dont have a soul.

“Robot”comes from the Czech word “robotnik，” meaning serf or slave.22 In R.U.R. （Rossums Universal Robots），robots are artificial people designed to perform hard labor， until （spoiler alert！） they rise up in rebellion against the human race.23 ?apeks robots are not robots in the modern sense of the term—their artificial skin and organs make them physically indistinguishable from regular humans， closer to cyborgs than to modern robots—but R.U.R.s translation into English in 1923 marks the moment when the fantasy of what had previously been called automatons became the fantasy of the robot.24

5. Serendipity， Horace Walpole25

This discovery， indeed， is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity， a very expressive word， which， as I have nothing better to tell you， I shall endeavour to explain to you： you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition.26 I once read a silly fairy tale， called The Three Princes of Serendip： as their Highnesses travelled， they were always making discoveries， by accidents and sagacity， of things which they were not in quest of： for instance， one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately， because the grass was eaten only on the left side， where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand Serendipity？ 27

This one comes not from a book but from a letter. Horace Walpole， the author of the gothic novel The Castle of Otranto， wrote to a friend in 1754 with news of the exciting new word hed invented， drawing from a fairy tale set in Serendip， an old name for Sri Lanka.28 Serendipity， the faculty29 or instance of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident， is often considered one of the most difficult-to-translate words in the English language.

6. Utopia， Thomas More30

The Utopians call those nations that come and ask magistrates31 from them Neighbors； but those to whom they have been of more particular service， Friends； and as all other nations are perpetually either making leagues or breaking them， they never enter into an alliance with any state.32 They think leagues are useless things， and believe that if the common ties of humanity do not knit men together， the faith of promises will have no great effect； and they are the more confirmed in this by what they see among the nations round about them， who are no strict observers of leagues and treaties.33

Utopia is a Latin word that means “nowhere，” so when Thomas More used it as the name of his imagined ideal nation in 1516， he was emphasizing its unreality. Now we use the word as a way of describing imagined perfect civilizations， but utopias are nowhere near as popular as their antonyms： dystopias， which are literally “imagined bad places.”34

Bonus35： Why Shakespeare isnt on this list

Its a common myth that Shakespeare invented thousands of commonly used English words， including classics like “swagger，” “eyeball，” “puke，” and “dawn.”36 Unfortunately， this is almost definitely false. When the first editions of the Oxford English Dictionary were compiled， lexicographers had to painstakingly scan individual texts by hand to find the first recorded usage of every word in the dictionary.37 They ended up listing Shakespeare as the first person to write down 3，200 words.

But today， with the advent of computerized word searching， Shakespeare has been dethroned from almost all of his etymological entries.38 （The same thing happened on a smaller scale to Charles Dickens， who it seems did not in fact coin the words “boredom” and “butterfingers.”39）

It turns out that Shakespeares genius was not in coining new words—it was in hearing new words and writing them down before they became widespread， and in wringing new meaning out of old， worn-out words：40 turning “elbow”into a verb and “where”into a noun. He didnt invent the words， but he knew how to use them better than anyone.

據說莎翁一生創造出了上千個新詞，在我們每天常用的詞中，有很多就來自這位大文豪。其實，除了莎翁之外，還有很多作家在其作品中一展想象力創造出了不少新詞，而這些詞就在不斷地傳播演變中逐漸成為了常用詞。

1. trace： 追究，追溯（來源）。

2. 這種情況時有發生，作者將不同語言的根詞、舊稱以及/或者無意義音節相組合，創造出人名、地名或之前從未想象過的概念名稱，然后慢慢地，這些名稱就潛入了普通用語中。nonsense： 無意義的，荒謬的；syllable： 音節；creep into： 逐漸侵入（或融進）。

3. chortle： 哈哈地笑，咯咯地笑；Lewis Carroll： 劉易斯·卡羅爾（1832—1898），英國著名作家、數學家，代表作為《愛麗絲漫游奇境記》（Alices Adventures in Wonderland）。

4. hast thou： 古英語，相當于have you；slay： 殺害；Jabberwock： 最早出現在《愛麗絲鏡中世界奇遇記》（Through the Looking-Glass， and What Alice Found There）的名為Jabberwocky的詩中，是一條惡龍的名字，譯為“炸脖龍”或“伽卜沃奇”。后用jabberwocky來表示“無聊、無意義的話”。

5. beamish： 得意的。

6. frabjous： 壯麗的，輝煌的；callooh， callay： 好，好哇（表示激動與高興的呼喊聲）。

7. chock-full of： 充滿……。

8. chuckle： 輕聲笑；snort： 發出哼聲（此處兩個詞為配合chortled均使用了過去式）；intuit： 憑直覺得知；brillig： 是劉易斯·卡羅爾在Jabberwocky一詩中創造的詞，一般指“下午四點鐘，開始準備晚餐的時間”。

9. pandemonium：（尤指因人群憤怒或激動而引起的）大混亂，嘈雜；John Milton： 約翰·彌爾頓（1608—1674），英國文學史上最偉大的詩人之一，代表作為《失樂園》（Paradise Lost）。

10. 那時長著翅膀的天使們，在元首的命令下，用威嚴的儀式和號筒的聲響，向全體官兵傳達消息，宣布在元首撒旦和大天使們的最高首府，“萬魔殿”開一個嚴肅的會議……（朱維之譯版）。sovran： 君主，最高統治者；trumpet： 喇叭，小號；proclaim： 宣布，聲明；solemn： 嚴肅的，鄭重的；Councel： 指council，會議； forthwith： 立刻； Satan： 撒旦； peer： 同地位的人。

11. out of thin air： 無中生有地，憑空地。

12. demon： 魔鬼，惡魔。

13. chaos： 混亂，無序；all hell breaks loose： 災難降臨，倒霉透頂。

14. malapropism：（荒唐可笑的）用詞錯誤；Richard Brinsley Sheridan： 理查德·布林斯利·謝里丹（1751—1816），英國杰出的社會風俗喜劇作家，代表作為《對手》（The Rivals）。

15. ingeniously： 別出心裁地。

16. delight in： 以……為樂；elaborate： 精心制作的；polysyllabic： 多音節的。

17. pineapple： 此處指對pinnacle的誤用， pineapple意為“菠蘿”，pinnacle意為“頂峰，巔峰”。

18. physiognomy： 此處指對phraseology的誤用，physiognomy意為“外貌，面相”，phraseology意為“措辭，用詞”； grammatical： 符合語法的。

19. inopportunely： 不合時宜地。

20. Karel ?apek： 卡雷爾·恰佩克（1890—1938），捷克著名的劇作家和科幻文學家、童話寓言家，代表作有科幻小說《鯢魚之亂》（War with the Newts）以及科幻戲劇《羅素姆萬能機器人》[R.U.R. （Rossums Universal Robots）]。

21. mechanically： 機械地。

22. Czech： 捷克；serf： 農奴。

23. spoiler alert： 劇透警告；rise up： 起義，反抗；rebellion： 反抗。

24. 恰佩克的robots并不是現代意義上的機器人——他們的人造皮膚和器官使他們看起來與常人并無差異，他們更接近電子人，而不是現代的機器人——但是1923年《羅素姆萬能機器人》被翻譯成英文版標志著人們以前對于自動操作機器的幻想轉變成了對機器人的幻想。artificial： 人工的，人造的；indistinguishable： 難以分辨的，無法區分的；cyborg： 電子人，半機械人；automaton： 自動操作裝置。

25. serendipity： 意外發現有趣（或有用）之物；Horace Walpole： 霍勒斯·沃波爾（1717—1797），英國作家，代表作有哥特式小說《奧特蘭托城堡》（The Castle of Otranto），他一生寫了大約4，000封信，其中一些被認為是英語語言中最杰出的文字。

26. endeavour to do sth.： 努力去做某事；derivation： 起源，詞源。

27. Highness： 陛下，殿下；sagacity： 聰慧，精明；in quest of： 探尋，尋求；mule： 騾子。

28. gothic： 哥特式的；Sri Lanka： 斯里蘭卡。

29. faculty： 天賦，能力。

30. utopia： 烏托邦；Thomas More： 托馬斯·莫爾（1478—1535），歐洲早期空想社會主義學說的創始人，才華橫溢的人文主義學者和閱歷豐富的政治家，以其名著《烏托邦》而名垂史冊。

31. magistrate： 地方法官。

32. perpetually： 無休止地，長期地；alliance： 結盟，同盟。

33. 他們認為結盟毫無用處，并堅信如果人性共同紐帶不能將人類連接在一起，那么信仰承諾也不會有多大作用。當他們看到周遭那些沒有嚴格遵守聯盟與條約的國家時，便對這一觀點更加堅信不疑了。knit：（使）結合在一起；observer： 遵守者；treaty： 條約。

34. civilization： 文明社會，文明國家；nowhere near： 遠不及；antonym： 反義詞；dystopia： 反烏托邦，指充滿丑惡與不幸之地。

35. bonus： 額外得到的東西，意外的好處。

36. myth： 荒誕傳說，無根據之觀念；swagger： 昂首闊步，吹牛；puke： 嘔吐；dawn： 黎明。

37. 在編纂第一版《牛津英語詞典》時，詞典編纂者不得不煞費苦心地親手翻閱每個文本，以找到詞典中每個詞最初的記錄來源。edition： 版本，版次；compile： 匯編，編纂；lexicographer： 詞典編纂者；painstakingly： 仔細地，煞費苦心地；scan： 細看。

38. with the advent of： 隨著……的出現； computerized： 用計算機完成的；dethrone： 使失去重要地位；etymological： 詞源；entry： 詞條。

39. scale： 程度，規模；coin： 編造，杜撰（新詞語）； butterfingers： 拿不穩東西的人。

40. wring sth. out of： 費力地從……中取得某物；worn-out： 舊的。