综合一区欧美国产,99国产麻豆免费精品,九九精品黄色录像,亚洲激情青青草,久久亚洲熟妇熟,中文字幕av在线播放,国产一区二区卡,九九久久国产精品,久久精品视频免费

 





 
Gilding the lily?
[ 2007-05-15 16:43 ]

Reader question:
What's gilding the lily?

My comments:
To gild something is to cover it with a thin layer of gold or something else smooth and shiny.

The lily is the flower. To gild the lily is ridiculous - not to say downright impossible - but that's the point. The lily is beautiful as it is. To further adorn it will be, quoting Shakespeare, "much ado about nothing".

In fact, gilding the lily the expression comes (indirectly) from Shakespeare, who wrote in the 16th century: "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow… is wasteful and ridiculous excess" (The Life and Death of King John).

Shakespeare of course said "paint the lily", which made sense. Today, people say "gild the lily", and they do it too.

In China, we have a similar expression. It's called "adding feet to a snake". In a parable first told some 2,000 years ago, two people were awarded a bottle of wine and they so arranged that the first one to finish the drawing of a snake would have the drink. One of them had quick hands with the brush and he finished the paint first. Instead of drinking the wine outright, however, he said to the other smugly: "I think I can even add a few feet to it before you're done with yours." But while he was at it, the other man wrapped up his snake, feetless of course, and drank the wine before asking: "Have you ever seen a snake with feet?" The first man was left to rue his ingenuity.

The moral of the story? If you have extra energy, you'd do better by getting yourself, like, a drink. Without the gild the lily is beautiful. Without feet the snake is complete. Do not mess with them.

This point of less is more is driven home humorously by the late philosopher Alan Watts (Google him), who in one of his lectures likened "gilding the lily" to "putting a beard on a eunuch."

You get the picture.

 

About the author:
 

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

 
 
相關(guān)文章 Related Stories
 
         
 
 
 
 
 
         

 

 

 
 

48小時內(nèi)最熱門

     

本頻道最新推薦

     
  On the ropes?
  Can't stick it on Korea
  Will Wolfowitz fall on his sword?
  Learn to write idiomatic English
  Since you asked

論壇熱貼

     
  英語點(diǎn)津開博客,大家覺得怎么樣?
  快快加入“凈臉兩周年特別活動”
  Levinson對各年齡段生活的詮釋
  employment number 怎么翻
  大家一塊來說說體現(xiàn)漢語文化的英語詞匯
  這里為什么不用”reason“呢?




张家口市| 来宾市| 泰来县| 大理市| 长春市| 高淳县| 常熟市| 麻阳| 澄城县| 灵川县| 黑龙江省| 北流市| 溆浦县| 崇阳县| 吐鲁番市| 武功县| 大余县| 东明县| 阿鲁科尔沁旗| 南充市| 若羌县| 宁武县| 容城县| 承德县| 乌拉特前旗| 兴山县| 仙桃市| 红原县| 永和县| 上高县| 桃源县| 上高县| 乌鲁木齐县| 类乌齐县| 横山县| 如东县| 大洼县| 九江县| 蛟河市| 大余县| 山西省|