Friends英语赏析【29】卑鄙小人

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第二十九篇

ROSS and CHANDLER: Hhhiiii.
RACHEL: What's the matter with you?
CHANDLER: The mean guys at the coffee house took my hat.
RACHEL: Noo.
JOEY: You're kiddin'.
ROSS: It was ridiculous. Ya know, these guys, they were bullies, actual bullies, ya know. We're grown ups, this kinda stuff isn't supposed to happen anymore.

【世博视角】

听到Ross和Chandler所说的那声Hi, 恐怕大家都会像Rachel那样问上一句：“What’s the matter with you? (你们俩怎么了？)”Chandler回答说The mean guys at the coffee house took my hat. 单词mean在这句话中作形容词用，意思是“卑鄙的”，又比如：That was a mean thing to do. 如果要表示对某某人很卑鄙，mean 后面跟上介词to, 如：Billy and the others were really mean to me at school today. 另外，mean在英式英语（British English）中也可以用来形容某人很小气，而美语的话则用cheap这个词，例如：

Rick's so mean he never even buys his wife a birthday present.
He's always been mean with his money.

Ross和Chandler 碰上了两个卑鄙的家伙，他们抢走了Chandler的帽子。Joey觉得这事有些滑稽，就说 “You’re kidding.” 我们知道kid作为名词可以非正式地表示“小孩子”，大人们总是不拿小孩子说的话当回事，所以当他们说You’re kidding, 意思就是“你在开玩笑”，又如：You've got to be kidding me! What do you mean you lost the tickets?

Ross接着说那两个人简直就是bullies, 也就是那些欺凌弱小者，每个学校里好像都会有这样的人，如：A group of kids stood by and watched the school bully beat up a smaller boy. 小时候受到这些人的欺负还有些无可奈何，可长大成人之后再碰上这种事情就有点让人咽不下这口气了，所以Ross才会说：We're grown ups, this kinda stuff isn't supposed to happen anymore. (我们是大人了，这种事情不应该再发生了。)

有一句话说得好：Bullies are often cowards. （欺凌弱小者常常是懦夫），他们通常只会欺弱怕强。

*本篇所讲到的表达法

mean
You’re kidding!
bully