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"Nine tailors make a man" nghĩa là gì?
30 Sep, 2019
Photo by Niko Lienata
"Nine tailors make a man" = Chín thợ may mới tạo nên một người đàn ông -> Số chín ở đây là số lần tiếng chuông nhà thờ rung để báo hiệu về một người chết là một nam giới. Đôi khi đây cũng là cách nói móc những nam thợ may ẻo lả, mỏng manh và bất lực khi mà so sánh với những người đàn ông bình thường khác. Các bạn đừng nhầm với thành ngữ "the tailor makes the man" (người tốt vì lụa) nhá.
Ví dụ
The pattern (khuôn mẫu) was similar for a woman, except there would be six initial tolls (tiếng rung chuông). (If "nine tailors make a man," then I guess six tailors make a woman.) If that sounds exhausting (mỏi mệt, kiệt sức), remember that life expectancies (tuổi thọ) were much lower as recently as the late 1800s -- especially for women.
The explanation quoted above may very well be correct, but I notice with some unease that seven and nine are the favorites of numerous idioms and folklore, and here they occur in what was known a hundred years ago, and in an entirely different context (ngữ cảnh), as entente cordiale (hiệp ước thân thiện giữa Anh và Pháp). See the posts for April 6, 2016 and June 19, 2019. Does the phase seven by nine really have an ascertainable (có thể xác định) foundation in reality, or is the use of seven and nine in it as mysterious (huyền bí) as in nine tailors make a man and seven-league boots (đôi hài bảy dặm)?
This most popular explanation takes its cue from the theme “For whom the bell tolls?” and resolves itself into the following. In some places in England the bell tolled nine times for a deceased man (người đàn ông đã khuất), six times for a woman, and three times for a child. Thus, nine tolls made, as it were, a dead man. The rest depends on the flight of a rather wild imagination. The strokes (kỳ, tiếng chuông đồng hồ) told, or counted, at the end of a knell were allegedly called tellers, because people mistook tolled for told. Tellers in turn were “corrupted” into tailors from their sounding at the end, or “tail,” of the knell (hồi chuông báo tử). This is then how a tailor became the ninth part of a man. Surprisingly, this etymology (từ nguyên học) has been repeated even by some people who should have known better.
Bin Kuan
Bài trước: "Man of means" nghĩa là gì?
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