為什么英語(yǔ)中把懦弱膽小的人稱作chicken？雞是怎么和膽小聯(lián)系到一起的？你也許不知道，這事和大名鼎鼎的莎翁也有關(guān)系。

Anyone who refuses a double-dog dare is liable to be labeled a chicken. How dogs found their way into dare culture remains a bit of a mystery—but the reason cowards are called “chickens” is slightly clearer.

任何拒絕接受挑戰(zhàn)的人都很容易被貼上懦夫（chicken）的標(biāo)簽。為什么挑戰(zhàn)（double-dog dare）會(huì)和狗扯上關(guān)系現(xiàn)在還是一個(gè)謎，但是懦夫被稱為chicken的原因倒是略微明朗一些。

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest written instance of the word chicken in the craven sense comes from William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, circa 1616. "Forthwith they fly, Chickens,” he wrote, describing soldiers fleeing a battlefield.
根據(jù)《牛津英語(yǔ)詞典》的解釋，chicken一詞和懦夫含義相關(guān)的最早的書面實(shí)例來自威廉·莎士比亞創(chuàng)作于1616年左右的《辛白林》。莎士比亞在這個(gè)劇本中形容逃離戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)的士兵時(shí)寫道：“他們隨即飛奔而逃，懦夫們?！?/p>

But as Grammarphobia reports, domestic fowl had been associated with an absence of bravery long before the 17th century. One play from around 1450 described a coward as a “henne-harte,” and poet John Skelton likened some spineless courtiers to “hen-hearted cuckolds” in his poem Why Come Ye Nat to Courte circa 1529.

但是據(jù)“語(yǔ)法恐懼癥”網(wǎng)站介紹，早在17世紀(jì)前，雞就和膽小關(guān)聯(lián)在一起。創(chuàng)作于1450年左右的一部戲劇將懦夫描述為“母雞心臟”，詩(shī)人約翰·斯凱爾頓在他創(chuàng)作于1529年左右的詩(shī)歌《為何你們不上朝？》中將一些諂媚無骨的朝臣比作“雞心王八”。

Hens may have seemed especially timid because roosters were typically characterized as plucky. If you were a leader, a dauntless warrior, or just a dominant presence in the mid-16th century, someone might call you a “cock” (as a compliment). And when people first started using the term hen to tag submissive or cowardly folks in the 1600s, they were often juxtaposing it with cock.

或許因?yàn)楣u通常都被描述得很大膽，從而讓母雞相形之下顯得特別膽小。如果你是16世紀(jì)中葉的一個(gè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者、一個(gè)無畏的戰(zhàn)士或一個(gè)重要人物，有人可能會(huì)叫你“公雞”（作為贊美）。17世紀(jì)人們剛開始用母雞來指代順從懦弱的人時(shí)，通常都會(huì)與公雞一詞并列。

Take, for example, the closing stanza of a late 17th-century ballad known as Taylor’s Lamentation:

舉17世紀(jì)晚期的一首民謠《泰勒的悲嘆》的末節(jié)為例：

"Ever since then she bears such a sway,
That I am forc’d her Laws to obey.
She is the Cock and I am the Hen,
This is my case, Oh! pity me then.”

“從那以后她就說一不二，
她的命令我都得服從。
她是公雞而我成了母雞，
這就是我的命運(yùn)，哎，可憐我吧。”

The sexist subtext here isn’t exactly hidden: Female chickens, like female humans, are characterized as subdued and faint-hearted, taking cues from their valorous and powerful male counterparts. Any time the script is flipped, pity is in order for the poor man. Fortunately, the less gendered phrase (hens and roosters are all chickens) won out over time, though it’s not totally clear why. Chicken meaning fool—which may have been an offshoot of goose-as-fool—first started showing up in print around 1600. So it seems possible that the coward connotation caught on partly because the term also worked as a more general insult, too.

在這里字里行間都可以看出帶有性別歧視的隱含意思：母雞和女人一樣被刻畫成順從膽小的形象，只能聽命于勇敢強(qiáng)大的雄性。只要腳本一反轉(zhuǎn)，可憐的男人就應(yīng)該受到同情。幸運(yùn)的是，隨著時(shí)間流逝chicken這個(gè)不帶有強(qiáng)烈性別色彩的詞勝出了，母雞和公雞都統(tǒng)稱為chicken，盡管原因不是很清楚。17世紀(jì)前后，用雞（chicken）來指代傻瓜的用法首次出現(xiàn)在印刷品中，這可能是鵝帶有的傻瓜含義的衍生用法。所以雞帶有的懦夫含義一部分可能是因?yàn)檫@個(gè)詞同時(shí)也具有更普遍的侮辱含義。

英文來源：Mental Floss

翻譯&編輯：丹妮