According to John Ayto’s A to Z of Food and Drink:
根據(jù)約翰•埃托的《飲食指南》:
“These new-moon-shaped puff-pastry rolls seem first to have been introduced to British and American breakfast tables towards the end of the nineteenth century.”
“這些新月形狀的油酥小卷,似乎是在十九世紀(jì)末才首次被引入英美,并被端上人們?cè)绮筒妥赖摹?rdquo;
He goes on to cast aspersions on the stories told about the invention of these yummy baked goods. Wikipedia disses the stories too.
接著,他批評(píng)了那些關(guān)于croissants的故事。在其中,這種美味烘烤面點(diǎn)的由來(lái),被吹得神乎其神。同樣,維基百科對(duì)此類(lèi)故事也不屑一顧。
I’ll tell that tale in a moment, but I want first to point out that Ayto accurately called croissants new-moon-shaped.
不過(guò),在我講述那個(gè)故事之前,我想指出,埃托一字不差地說(shuō),croissants有著新月的形狀(new-moon-shaped)。
John Ayto has written several books about words and their origins and so I’m sure that he chose his words there very carefully.
約翰•埃托已經(jīng)出了好幾本關(guān)于單詞及其來(lái)源的書(shū)了。因此,我認(rèn)為,他對(duì)于遣詞造句一定是非常小心謹(jǐn)慎的。
Of course we call that shape of moon a crescent moon and of course the words crescent and croissant are really two flavors of the same word; crescent arriving in English from French in the 1300s and croissant along with the pastry in at the end of the 1800s, also from French.
當(dāng)然,呈現(xiàn)出這個(gè)形狀的月亮常常被我們稱(chēng)為一輪crescent moon。而單詞crescent與croissant的確是同一個(gè)單詞的兩種表現(xiàn)形式;crescent于十四世紀(jì)從法語(yǔ)進(jìn)入英語(yǔ),croissant及其所指稱(chēng)的油酥面點(diǎn)一道在十九世紀(jì)末,同樣從法語(yǔ)進(jìn)入英語(yǔ)。
But when I refer to a crescent moon I’m usually just intending to communicate its fingernail-clipping shape. It could just as easily be a waning moon as a waxing moon.
不過(guò),當(dāng)我提到一輪crescent moon的時(shí)候,我通常只是想描述它的形狀,像一片被剪下的、彎彎的手指甲。此時(shí),它既可以指一輪殘?jiān),也可以指一輪眉月?br />
But new-moon-shaped refers only to waxing, or growing moons, and this is as is should be because the very word crescent has an etymology related to the growing moon.
而新月形狀(new-moon-shaped)只是指娥眉月,或者正在成長(zhǎng)的月亮。這么說(shuō)的原因就在于單詞crescent有一個(gè)與(娥)眉月相關(guān)的詞源。
A new moon begins with a very thin sliver of a crescent that grows and grows until it’s a full moon. It’s that growing we’re looking for.
一輪新月開(kāi)始時(shí)只有一條銀白色的細(xì)弧,之后它慢慢地成長(zhǎng),直到成為滿(mǎn)月。而我們?cè)谔骄康木驼沁@一成長(zhǎng)過(guò)程。
I mentioned in the podictionary episode on recruit that an Indo-European root ker meant to grow. This same root turns up as crescere in Latin and was then applied to the growing moon. The shape thus took its name from this horned appearance of the moon.
在《每日一詞》一期關(guān)于recruit的文章里,我曾經(jīng)提到過(guò)一個(gè)意為成長(zhǎng)(to grow)的印歐語(yǔ)系詞根ker。這個(gè)詞根在拉丁語(yǔ)中以crescere的面目出現(xiàn),它在后來(lái)被用來(lái)指稱(chēng)正在成長(zhǎng)的月亮。因此,這一形狀就有了一個(gè)名稱(chēng),即像犄角一樣的月亮外形。
This same shape is an Islamic symbol and the much discredited story of the invention of the edible croissant is tied to this Islamic crescent.
這個(gè)形狀也是一個(gè)伊斯蘭的標(biāo)志,而那個(gè)極不靠譜的故事——關(guān)于牛角面包的由來(lái)——就與這個(gè)伊斯蘭的新月(標(biāo)志)聯(lián)系在一起。
Supposedly the bakers in either Vienna or Budapest were up early one morning going at it with their bread dough and stoking up their ovens when they heard a digging noise.
據(jù)稱(chēng),有一天清晨,正當(dāng)那些——不是居住在維也納就是布達(dá)佩斯的——面包師們開(kāi)始忙活著揉生面團(tuán),給爐子生火的時(shí)候,他們聽(tīng)到了挖地洞的聲音。
They alerted the army who then prevented the Turks from entering the city by tunneling under the city walls. As a reward the bakers were allowed to, or asked to create celebratory goodies in the shape of the Islamic crescent.
他們向守城的軍隊(duì)報(bào)了警。而后,守軍粉碎了土耳其人攻城的企圖——這些穆斯林想通過(guò)從城墻下挖地道的戰(zhàn)術(shù)攻打進(jìn)城。作為獎(jiǎng)賞,面包師們被允許——或是被請(qǐng)求——創(chuàng)造出一種外形類(lèi)似于伊斯蘭新月形狀的美食,用來(lái)慶祝這一次勝利。
Trouble is that these Turkish attacks happened back around the end of the 1600s and the first reference we have to the pastries doesn’t come until something like 170 years later. The first time the word was used in English was in 1899 according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
問(wèn)題是,這些土耳其人對(duì)西歐的進(jìn)攻發(fā)生在公元十七世紀(jì)末期,而在我們手頭的資料里,牛角面包第一次被提及的日期要比那晚了將近170多年。根據(jù)《牛津英語(yǔ)字典》,這個(gè)詞是在1899年才首次出現(xiàn)在英語(yǔ)中的。
The user was a small time author from Alabama named William Chambers Morrow. He used it pretty enthusiastically too since it appears three times in his book about how students lived in Paris 100 and some-odd years ago.
它的使用者是一個(gè)來(lái)自于阿拉巴馬,名叫威廉•詹博斯•莫羅的平庸小作家。他寫(xiě)了一本書(shū),介紹100多年前學(xué)生在巴黎的生活情況。在該書(shū)中,單詞croissant竟出現(xiàn)了三次——他對(duì)這個(gè)單詞的熱衷程度,由此可見(jiàn)一斑。
But this use of croissant for the delicacy didn’t mean that was the first time English speakers were experiencing them. Crescent rolls are cited as an Americanism 13 years before.
然而,每當(dāng)說(shuō)英語(yǔ)的人用croissant來(lái)稱(chēng)呼這道精美面點(diǎn)的時(shí)候,這可并不意味著他們此時(shí)才初次品嘗到牛角面包。在13年前,(同樣被用于指稱(chēng)牛角面包的)Crescent rolls就已經(jīng)被當(dāng)作美語(yǔ)詞匯所引用了。
相關(guān)閱讀:法式牛角面包