繼反義詞 (antonyms) 的煎熬後，本週要檢查的功課，是一張近義詞 (synonyms) 的工作紙。
那張工作紙，又是以選擇題的形式，問學生某些英文字的近義詞（好悶耶～）。其中一題問 brand (牌子) 的近義詞，見學生選了 make，直覺想送他一個大交叉，但見餘下的三個選項，並沒有看似正確的答案，於是苦思冥想了好一會兒，然後跟學生說：「我看這題是打錯字吧？老師可是想問
bland (淡然無味) 的近義詞？（按：其中一個選項是 tasteless）」誰知學生回道：「不，我查了鴉烏字典，make可解作牌子呢。」
栗妹當然不會信那本該死的鴉烏字典，於是回家查
OALD，發現以下這條：
make (n.)
the name or type of machine, piece of equipment, etc. that is made by a
particular company
讀了這些年英文，都不知道
make 可解作牌子呢……
make是對的，只是沒那麼常見。所以我懷疑有多少現在的高考生能答對這題。
回覆刪除[版主回覆08/29/2011 14:30:00]我老板話係 informal language，不過我就從來都未聽過未見過啦~
看上去像是informal word，但應該不是。沒有brand那麼普遍，但偶然也會見到。
回覆刪除[版主回覆08/29/2011 20:16:00]我連偶然碰上的機會也沒有呢...
Ok, Chestnut, here's my rant:
回覆刪除1. You are holding out on us. It's very misleading unless you give us all the choices in the MC question.
2. There is a school of thought among the muckety-muck English vocabularians (is there such a word... ) that there's no such thing as a synonym. Therefore, by drilling ESL kids on this, the system is actually encouraging bad diction. Your thoughts?
3. There's a big difference between "make" and "brand". Make identifies the company that makes the merchandise. Brand is the name the company gives to the merchandise, or a line of the merchandise it makes. A single company can have several brands, but not the other way around.
[版主回覆08/31/2011 21:19:00]Teacher: 1. Let me jot down the options next time I see my student. I just couldn't remember the other two when I wrote this entry. 2. I agree that there is no 同義詞 (words with exact meaning) in this world, but there are plenty of 近義詞 (words with similar meaning). 3. Thanks for the explanation!