"Going to be something doing in the humidity line to-night," he said. "You out-of-town chaps will be the people, with your katydids and moonlight and long drinks and things out on the front porch."
这里Going to be something doing in the humidity line to-night给的注释翻译为:今天晚上又要喝点酒了吧。 请问各位老师,这句话是怎么理解为喝点酒了,humidity line是什么意思?
原文地址 http://novel.tingroom.com/html/42/497.html
网友好,这个问题网上有讨论。我粘贴一个回答过来供参考。更多见:https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/20131/what-does-this-mean-going-to-be-something-doing-in-the-humidity-line-to-nigh?rq=1
下面内容,版权归StoneyB 先生。
This is a jocular statement in early 20th-century US colloquial diction.
1. The subject has been omitted; this is a matter of conversational deletion.
The omitted subject is the dummy or existential there, so the matrix clause is ‘There is going to be something doing.’
2. There is something doing ... This is a stock phrase meaning approximately Something is happening or There will be activity or (in 1960s slang) Something is going down.
3. In the X line ... Originally line in uses of this sort meant the ‘right line’ to be followed in any activity, but by the late 18th century the sense was extended to the line of business or occupation in which one engages, or the line of merchandise sold by a particular salesman, and was eventually extended in jocular use to what you observe here: a deliberately ponderous way of saying having to do with X.
So what we have is
There is going to be considerable activity having to do with humidity tonight.
In other words, “The weather is going to be very humid tonight.”
欧亨利算得上是一百多年前的人物了。当时的英语与现在的英语肯定在一些用词上有不一样的地方。一些在当时流行的词句,在现在估计已经消亡。所以就算是母语者认读时也会有困难。
我的建议是,遇到这类小说,看上去也没什么语法难点,只是词比较怪的,就直接略过(我一直这样做,不浪费时间)。很可能是100年前的流行语而已,现在不用了。
附上网上一名母语者对Going to be something doing in the humidity line to-night的解释,他认为这就是当时比较的流行语而已。意思是
There is going to be considerable activity having to do with humidity tonight.