「淋紅油」和「有預謀」的英文

昨天教了你用英文「撻朵」，各位有沒有活學活用，實踐所學，四處撻朵呢？

教完撻朵，不如又談談「淋紅油」的英文。前幾天新世界傳動網旗下十八個門市就給人淋紅油：

18 New World mobile phone shops targeted in paint attacks

Eighteen mobile phone shops under New World Mobility were daubed with paint yesterday. (SCMP, 2007/7/5)

按字面解釋，「淋紅油」只是把紅油淋到某處，本身並沒有「惡意攻擊」的意思，但因為這是常用的恐嚇方法，所以一說到「淋紅油」，大家都聯想到恐嚇的潛台詞。外國人或者不明白這種恐嚇文化，所以上述標題便用了「paint attacks」來強調行為的挑釁性。

而「淋」油的「淋」，可以用daub這個字。daub作動詞用時，就是將油漆、泥濘等撥到牆上。看看《牛津辭典》的解釋和例句：

to spread a substance such as paint, mud, etc. thickly and/or carelessly onto sth

The walls of the building were daubed with red paint.

描述「淋油」一刻，我們可以用另一個簡單的英文字pour：

Police said red or white paint was poured into the front gates of the 18 shops. (SCMP, 2007/7/5)

一次過淋十八間店，當然不是惡作劇，而是早有預謀的：

Police believe the attacks, which took place between 5am and 7am, were premeditated. One officer said: "We don't think that it's a prank. It was a premeditated attack. If not, it would not have involved so many shops." (SCMP, 2007/7/5)

還記得prank這個字嗎？prank call就是「整蠱電話」，prank即「惡作劇」。「早有預謀」的英文也不難，meditate這個字解作「計劃」、「籌謀」，pre-這個前綴一向有「在之前」的意思，所以「預謀」就是pre加上meditate，成為premeditate了。