Thursday, May 05, 2011

ming 中注定貴人相助




數月前,我向圖書館強力薦購 2010 年底剛推出的線上版《牛津英語詞典》(The Oxford English Dictionary Online)。但由於東吳經費編列上的限制,最快要等到下一個會計年度才能採購。圖書館幫我向代理商爭取了近兩個月的試用期,屆滿之後就無法再行登錄查閱,令人扼腕。

昨天語國一方歡度週年慶,我無意中又上了 OED 的網站,想不到首頁上竟出現了個大大的 Welcome back,真讓人喜出望外!我做了些搜尋,一切正常。興奮之餘,趕緊把需要的資料複製下來,儲存到電腦的桌面上,生怕這天上掉下來的禮物只是網路秀斗,曇花一現,系統正常之後煮熟的鴨子馬上就會飛走。

事情告一個段落之後,我立刻致電圖書館採錄組詢問究竟,原來這不是網路秀斗。線上版《牛津英語詞典》的代理權易手了,新的代理商一邊跟圖書館洽談費用,一邊又給我們試用,據聞如果一切順利,這項服務將可一氣呵成,不會再有空窗期。

哇,好幸福!有了這個龐大新穎的資料庫,做起研究來更是如虎添翼了,我是不是 "命" 中注定有貴人相助呢?

這套最新版的《牛津英語詞典》,首度把 "命運" 的 "命" (ming) 收入英語,成為英語的新詞之一,雖然此 ming 早在 1937 年就已見諸馮友蘭《中國哲學史》的英譯本了 (A History of Chinese Philosophy, translated by Derk Bodde)。

ming, n.

Pronunciation: Brit. /mɪŋ/ , U.S. /mɪŋ/
Etymology: < Chinese mìng lot, fate, destiny.

Compare earlier compound < Chinese suàn-mìng fortune-telling < suàn to calculate + mìng, in first quot. below translating French Souan Ming:
1736 R. Brookes tr. P. Du Halde Hist. China III. 61 Souan Ming, Telling of Fortunes; the Country is full of a sort of people who pretend to be..reading the Destinies of Mankind.
1805 J. Barrow Trav. in China viii. 325 By being made acquainted with the day and hour of a person's birth, they [sc. fortune-tellers] pretend to cast his nativity, which is called swan-ming, or the art of discovering events by means of numbers.


Fate, destiny; divine providence.

1937 D. Bodde tr. Yu-Lan Fêng Hist. Chinese Philos. iii. 31 A fatalistic T'ien, equivalent to the concept of Fate (ming), a term applied to all those events in human life over which man himself has no control.
1962 E. Snow Other Side of River (1963) xxii. 166 The Communists changed China's ming or fate when they fought ceaselessly during twenty years of hardship before winning power.
1995 Cambr. Dict. Philos. 498/1 In general, ming is what is outside of human control.
1997 Oxf. Dict. World Relig. 643/2 To know ming and to act according to it, without attachment to the success or failure of the action, is an ideal of Confucianism.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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