英語學(xué)習(xí)韋氏典故詞典

1、277 Hiimpty Dumpty Humbert Humbert The pedophile protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov's novélLolita (1955). A middle-aged lecher obsessed with preteen-aged girls. Humbert Humbert is the pseudonym of the narrator o

2、f Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Both Humbert and LOLITA have passed into the lan- guage as eponyms. Humbert Humbert is a shocking character in a shocking novel; he schemes to exploit a child sexually, something that

3、remains difficult for even jaded readers to cope with. At the same time his obsession and his sometimes pathetic bumbling add comic tones to the story. He bullies Lolita, yet his romantic passion gives her great power

4、 over him while she is able to remain remote. The term in use, by Alice Steinbach, in the Baltimore Sun, March 2,1994: ... March is the time of year when the fashion industry trots out its vision of what the well-dres

5、sed woman can look forward to wearing. Suffice it to say that Humbert Humbert would go gaga over this year's look. And by Tony Snow in the Washington Times, May 2, 1994, on jogging trail etiquette: There is nothi

6、ng rarer on a jogging trail than actual eye contact. People gaze carefully at every ripple of the anatomical landscape but the eyes. Nevertheless, men should not gawk at sun-bronzed women in halter tops or other scant

7、y garb. Such behavior is tacky and lecherous, not to mention dangerous in the presence of fathers, husbands, boyfriends and Janet Reno. It is politically and socially unacceptable for males to act like Humbert Humber

8、t—unless they're president. Humpty Dumpty A nursery-rhyme character, who sat on a wall and had a great fall. By extension, someone who sits in an insecure position; or some one or some thing which, once broken, is

9、difficult to reassemble, even when great resources are brought to bear—all the king's horses and all the king's men. Also, in hyphenated form, it is an adjective meaning short and broad, like the physique of t

10、he egg-man character in the nurs- ery rhyme. The nursery rhyme's origins are obscure, but the character shows up in various European languages. Humpty also makes an appearance in Lewis Carroll's Through the Lo

11、oking-Glass (1872) and encounters Alice: “When I use a word,“ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scorn- ful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.“ “The question is,“ said Alice, “whether you

12、 can make words mean so many things.“ “The question is,“ said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.“ This is trial version www.adultpdf.com279 hydra-headed even optimistic results might not be applic

13、able to patients with other forms of the hydra-headed disease. And by Eleanor Perenyi in Green Thoughts (1981): The Egyptian onion is a curiosity. From a single bulb it sends up half a dozen stout, hollow stalks each o

14、f which sprouts a bulb cluster rather like shallots. When the weight of these brings them to the ground, they root in their turn and in no time you have a hydra-headed monster ready to take over the whole garden. And

15、by Paul Vitello in Newsday, January 24, 1999 on the scene at the impeachment trial of President Clinton: Shoulder-to-shoulder under bright TV lights that gave it all a cin- ematic glamor shuffled reporters, politicians,

16、 staff, camera oper- ators. Each was in search of, or locked onto, some detail about Social Security or defense spending or the impeachment that would be quickly fed to some arm of the hydra-headed media to which they