Friends英语赏析【115】run an errand 替人跑腿

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Rachel: Jill?
Jill: (covers her eyes and starts crying) I’m sorry Rachel, I’m sorry…
Rachel: Oh, come on! You think that’s gonna work on me?! I invented that!
Jill: Right! But, I am sorry.
Rachel: All right, it’s okay. One little setback is okay, just don’t let it happen again, all right? Now since daddy paid for all this stuff, I should take it all away. But I’m just gonna take the-the pashmina. And the uh, and the uh pants. Y’know what, I’m just gonna take it all away, ‘cause that way you’ll just really learn the lesson. Okay? All right, I’m gonna run a couple of errands and I will see you at dinner.

瑞秋：吉尔？
吉尔：我很抱歉，瑞秋，对不起…
瑞秋：噢，少来了，你以为那对我有用？是我发明这一套的！
吉尔：是啊！不过我真的很抱歉。
瑞秋：好吧，没关系。一点小错误没关系，再别犯就好。既然你是花爸爸的钱买的这些东西，我就应该把它们都拿走，不过我就拿这条披肩好了，哦，还有这条裤子。算了，我都拿走了，这样你就能好好吸取一下教训，好吧？就这样，我还要去办点事，吃晚饭时见。

【世博视角】

说到“裤子”，可能大多数人都会用trousers一词，这没有错，可是在美国“裤子”却被习惯性的叫做pants, 也就是说trousers是英式英语。pants到了英国就被理解成“短裤”了，而在美语中“短裤”是underpants.

对话中瑞秋拿走了她妹妹刚买来的所有东西，目的是为了让她“吸取教训”, 用英语来表达就是learn a lesson, 比如我们常说的“从历史中汲取经验”就是learn the lessons of history。另外我们还可以说teach someone a lesson, 表示“给某人一个教训”，如：She decided to teach the boy a lesson.

errand, 意思是“差事”，常常与动词run 连用，表示出去办些小差事，说得不好听一点就是“替人跑腿”，例如：

I used to pick up her dry cleaning and run errands for her.
Peter cleaned equipment, ran errands, answered the phone -- it was all routine.