如果我说我正在rack my brains,你该不会以为我是说我脑子一团浆糊吧?如果朋友在电话那头告诉你,it's raining cats and dogs,你会不会茫然于什么是下猫下狗?

英语里有许许多多有意思的短语,“趣味短语来源”节目,专门挑选有趣的短语,每天一句,跟我一起学习地道英文吧!

Rack one's brains

【英文解释】make great mental effort (to remember something, think of a solution, etc.)

【中文解释】思前想后,绞尽脑汁

【短语来源】Literally, to stretch one's brains on the rack, an instrument of torture that stretched a victim's joints when its wheels and rollers, to which the limbs were attached, were turned by the operator. Its use in England was abolished in 1640.

这个短语很形象,是一种残酷的绞脑袋的刑罚,连动词“绞”都和中文遥相呼应,所以可以说,人类的智慧是相通的。

【有例有句】1. I have been racking my brains all day trying to think of a birthday present for her.

我花了一整天思前想后给她送什么生日礼物。

2. All night I have been tossing and turning racking my brains to think what could have possessed the young man to kill himself.

整整一晚我辗转反侧, 绞尽脑汁,到底是什么使这个年轻人自尽。