Take a country full of people who frequently loathe each other, then impose a social system of extreme politeness to ensure nobody can ever say what they mean without offending somebody else – and you’ll start to understand why these British insults are so unnecessarily weird.

如果有一個國家的人們總是互相嫌棄，而在社會上又無與倫比地禮貌，沒人想去開門見山地得罪別人，這極大程度上是種矛盾——看了這個解析，你就會懂得為什么下面這些拐彎抹角的英式奚落方法這么奇怪了。

“BLOWING HIS OWN TRUMPET”

自吹自擂

This, of course, refers to the ancient English practice of having a trumpet blown when somebody important arrived at court. The implication is that the person being insulted thinks he’s important, but in actual fact is so unimportant that he has no-one to blow a trumpet to announce his arrival; embarrassingly, he has to announce his own importance by ‘blowing his own trumpet’. Really, this is reflective of how much the British hate thesmarminess of self-promotion, which is probably why we all feel so uneasy about going into sleazy banking jobs.

此說法當然來自古代英國的風俗——凡是有貴人駕到宮廷，必奏小號(trumpet)。個中內涵是被侮辱的那人自以為很重要，但其實微不足道，沒有人為他吹小號來迎駕;令人尷尬的是，他得“自吹自擂”來廣告自己有多重要。這個短語反應了英國人有多討厭油腔滑調的自薦行為，這就是大家都抵觸進入金融行業的原因吧。

“THINKS HE’S GOD’S GIFT”

覺得自己是上帝的禮物

As I revealed in another article for KanDongSee, most of Britain’s insults come from Christian references, and here we see another example. God gave humankind many gifts, but it’s pretty pompous to assume that you’re one of them. The phrase is usually said of a man who thinks he is “God’s gift to women” (and he probably blows his own trumpet about it), and subtlyundermines the man in question is a classically British fashion. He will no doubt return home to curl into a ball and flounder in his own tears.

我在看東西另一篇文章中曾披露，大多英式的奚落方式來自基督教，這條也不例外。上帝給予了人們許多禮物，但要是你覺得自己就是其中之一，就不只是一點點的浮夸了。這個說法一般用在男人身上，這人認為自己是“上帝給女人的禮物”(這些人應該也會自吹自擂)，而經典的英式做法就是用這句話微妙地貶低他。你這一說，他肯定會灰溜溜地回家，蜷成一團嚎啕大哭的。

“EGGHEAD”

蛋頭

If there’s one thing the British love more than slyly insulting each other, it’s food – so it’s not surprising that they’ve combined the two things into one (also note “bad apple”, “sour grapes” and “couch potato”). An “egghead” is an annoyingly intelligent person, so-called because smart people are thought to have larger heads which look like upside-down eggs. If they get much more big-headed, they might end up scrambled.

除了拐彎抹角地罵人，英國人最喜歡的就要數食物了——所以他們把兩樣合并起來也不足為奇了(此外還有“bad apple(壞蘋果)”, “sour grapes(酸葡萄)”and “couch potato(沙發土豆)”)。“蛋頭”用來描述一個極為討厭的聰明人，說他是蛋是因為大家覺得聰明人的頭都比常人大，而且看起來像是倒置的蛋。如果他們頭再大一點就會被炒來吃掉了吧。

“GOT A FEW SCREWS LOOSE”

幾個螺絲釘松了

This common put-down has a number of siblings, including “few spanners short of a toolbox”, “few cards short of a deck”, “not the brightest crayon in the box”, “the light’s on but no one’s home” and my personal favourite: “fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down”. All of these link to the easily-imagined idea that stupid people are somehow missing bits of their brain. It’s certainly a more comfortable way for the British upper class to think about it – it means they don’t have to bother reforming the education system again.

這個常見的罵人方式還有幾個親戚，包括“few spanners short of a toolbox(工具箱里少了幾個扳手)”, “few cards short of a deck (一副牌里少了幾張)”, “not the brightest crayon in the box(不是盒子里最鮮艷的蠟筆)”, “the light’s on but no one’s home(空房子里亮著燈)”, 還有我自己最喜歡的：“fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down(從笨樹上掉下來的時候還撞到了每個樹枝)”。所有這些說法都和同一個想當然的主要思想有關——傻人腦子里缺根筋。這樣想對英國上層階級人士來說可能是件好事，這說明他們就不必大費周章地改革教育系統了。

“I DO DESIRE WE MAY BE BETTER STRANGERS”

我們最好做陌生人

Admittedly, this isn’t too commonly heard these days, but this brilliant put-down from Shakespeare’s As You Like It was too good to miss. Said by Orlando, this excellent littlequip is so cleverly worded you might think you were being complimented if you weren’t paying attention. The play actually has a wealth of put-downs that encapsulate the British idiom – consider “Let’s meet as little as we can”, “By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you”, or the oddly scathing “Truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.”

雖然現在并不常用, 但這個源于莎翁作品《皆大歡喜》的絕妙說法, 不提一下太可惜了。作為劇中奧蘭多的臺詞，這句嘲諷的修辭簡直聰明絕頂，你不注意還以為對方在夸你呢。此劇中有諸多包含英國諺語的奚落方式，比如“Let’s meet as little as we can(讓我們盡可能少見面吧)”，“By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you(我發誓，我在找一個傻瓜，不料遇到了你)”，或者像下面這難得尖刻的一句“Truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side(你真該死，就像一個煎壞了的蛋，一面全焦了)”。