最近在微信朋友圈貼過某英劇里出現(xiàn)的一句罵人話，不是“爆粗”，是羞辱人的話渗常，出自一位毒舌女王大律師之口：
原話是 Find my bloody evidence, you monochrome moron，罵人話還押頭韻刨秆，挺講究凳谦，我稱之為alliterative invective, 哪怕語義上有點(diǎn)無厘頭，但說起來瑯瑯上口衡未，解恨。罵人的話家凯，解恨就行缓醋。
何況這個組合并非無厘頭。
她罵的是尸位素餐绊诲、推諉塞責(zé)的辦事員送粱，她好言相求屁用沒有，怒不可遏掂之，于是吼了兩句（這是第一句）抗俄。
于她而言，此人不光笨世舰，還傻动雹，像一張白紙上畫了幾個黑色的圈圈（還不太圓）。
翻成“白癡”跟压，很貼切胰蝠。
這句中文字幕的亮點(diǎn)，不僅限于此震蒋∪兹看整句的語氣，祈使句查剖，沒商量钾虐，翻得非常到位：
Find my bloody evidence, you monochrome moron!
給我把證據(jù)找來，你個白癡笋庄！
現(xiàn)在來看第二句效扫，是緊接著上一句倔监，從大律師嘴里蹦出來的：
Earn your piss-poor salary!
可見這位大律師的語言風(fēng)格 is anything but monochrome...
這句也翻得可圈可點(diǎn)，從語義到語氣荡短，嚴(yán)絲合縫：
Earn your piss-poor salary!
好歹對得起那可憐的工資丐枉！
這種罵人的話，大律師張嘴就來掘托，it just rolls off her tongue.
順便提一下瘦锹，你說某人撒謊成性，可以翻成 He is a compulsive liar. He is a pathological liar. He is mendacious by nature. 等等闪盔。
謊話連篇呢弯院？What he said was a pack of lies.
睜著眼睛說瞎話呢？Telling blatant lies.
說謊不打草稿呢泪掀？Lies just roll off his tongue.
供參考听绳。說不定有用。
言歸正傳异赫。
Piss-poor, another specimen of alliterative invective!
少得可憐椅挣，好像跟尿沒啥關(guān)系。難道僅僅為了湊頭韻塔拳，把兩個無關(guān)的詞撮合在一起鼠证？
非也。我有個猜想靠抑，其“典故”來自這個說法：
這個說法跟家徒四壁量九、一貧如洗、室如懸磬相比颂碧，俗多了荠列，但更具象。這個pot不是purpose-made chamber pot（圖略）, 而是任何一種可以用來臨時收納廢液的器皿载城，也就是瓶瓶罐罐之類肌似，連這個都沒有，真是窮得連“叮當(dāng)響”都發(fā)不出來了个曙。
大膽假設(shè)锈嫩，上網(wǎng)求證......結(jié)果，我的猜想被證偽：
worldwidewords.org的博主Michael Quinion（劍橋?qū)W物理的垦搬，后來在BBC電臺任職呼寸，喜歡研究英語詞語演變，是《牛津新詞詞典》第二版的主編撰者之一）是這么說的：
Americans who know the idiom so poor he didn’t have a pot to piss in, sometimes in the fuller form... or a window to throw it out of, might wonder if this is the origin. The idiom appears in Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, published in 1936, so it does predate piss-poor. However, it’s a graphic literal reference to poverty; as piss-poor was first used in a figurative sense, it's unlikely to have been influenced by the older idiom.
換言之猴贰，piss-poor的本義对雪，跟“窮”無關(guān)，是少得可憐的意思米绕，也就是劇中大律師的意思：your piss-poor salary -- a meagre salary, a pittance.
在Quinion的網(wǎng)站上瑟捣，名叫Bob Fleck的讀者問:
An item circulating online under the title Interesting History claims, “They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day it was sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were ‘piss poor’.” This screams of folk etymology. Can you offer real clarity?
博主作了詳細(xì)解答馋艺，除了上面將季氏猜想證偽的那段外，主要內(nèi)容如下：
However, the expression piss-poor is recent and has nothing to do with tanning. The current state of research suggests that it may have been invented during the Second World War, because the first examples in print date from 1946. Though it is still classed as low slang by dictionaries, its mildly unpleasant associations have become blunted by time and familiarity.
The origin is straightforward. Piss began to be attached to other words during the twentieth century to intensify their meaning. Ezra Pound invented piss-rotten in 1940 (distasteful or unpleasant, the first example on record) and we’ve since had piss-easy (very easy), piss-weak (cowardly or pathetic), piss-elegant (affectedly refined, pretentious), piss-awful (very unpleasant) and other forms.
Piss-poor began life in a similar figurative sense for something that's third-rate, incompetent or useless, as it does in this recent example:
Larkin’s letters, wrote Philippe Auclair, writer and broadcaster, were “very funny, very beautiful, and very sad; the grace of an angel, the precision of a geometer, and the short-sighted, intolerant piss-poor idées fixes of a provincial buffoon”. The Spectator, 27 Nov. 2010.
Quinion最后的結(jié)論是：
In fact, the literal sense of extreme poverty for piss-poor didn’t come along until a couple of decades later, which also provides another reason, if one were needed, that the story you quote is nonsense.
Okay, Your Honour and Mr Know-It-All, I rest my case.
But before I do, I'd like to remind my readers of the 'fuller form' that His Honour referred to: so poor he didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of...
and let them visualise that scenario at their leisure...
Now my case is firmly rested.
