Recently, I overheard(无意中听到) a conversation in a cafe where someone described their toast as “awesome”. I felt myself bristle(感到不悦、恼怒). Not because the toast wasn’t good – I didn’t taste it – but because I remember a time when “awesome” meant something that inspired awe(唤起敬畏): towering mountains, the vastness of the night sky, the haunting(萦绕不去的、令人难忘的) song of a humpback whale. Now it’s being used to describe breakfast.
最近，我在一家咖啡馆无意中听到一段对话，有人用“awesome”来形容自己的吐司。我顿时感到一阵不悦。倒不是那块吐司不好——我根本没尝——而是因为我记得，曾经“awesome”指的是能唤起敬畏之情的事物：高耸的群山、夜空的浩瀚、座头鲸那萦绕不去的歌声。如今，它却被用来形容一顿早餐。
“Fantastic” has met the same fate, shedding(褪去、摆脱) its fantastical origins to become a synonym for “great”. Meanwhile “literally” has been so thoroughly abused that it can now mean something that is, quite literally, not literal.(而“literally”则被彻底滥用，以至于它现在可以表示某种——毫不夸张地说——并不字面的事物。)
“Fantastic”也遭遇了同样的命运，它褪去了“奇幻”的本源，沦为“很棒”的同义词。而“literally”则被彻底滥用，以至于它现在可以表示某种——毫不夸张地说——并不字面的事物。
Linguists call this “semantic bleaching(语义漂白)”: the gradual erosion(侵蚀、削弱) of a word’s original meaning through overuse. Which got me thinking about another word we hear with increasing frequency: “unprecedented”, the go-to adjective(首选形容词) in reporting about the climate crisis. In recent months, I’ve read about unprecedented heat, unprecedented rain, unprecedented drought and unprecedented wildfires. Batten down the hatches(做好防范、严阵以待): reports suggest that the current El Niño(厄尔尼诺现象) is going to be – you guessed it – unprecedented.
语言学家把这种现象称为“语义漂白”：一个词的本义因过度使用而逐渐被侵蚀。这让我想到另一个越来越频繁听到的词：“unprecedented”（前所未有的），它是气候危机报道中的首选形容词。近几个月，我读到过“前所未有的高温”“前所未有的降雨”“前所未有的干旱”和“前所未有的山火”。做好防范吧：有报道称，当前的厄尔尼诺现象将会——你猜对了——“前所未有的”。