spring chicken和lame duck是指春天孵出的小雞和瘸腿的鴨子嗎?當然不是,讀一讀下面這兩句話,猜猜它們的意思吧。
(1)The woman said,over forty, so I'm not a spring chicken any more.
(2)The governor of our state ended up as a lame duck when he lost the election. He still has sixweeks left in office but there's nothing to do except to pack up his papers.實際上,spring chicken意為“年輕人,缺乏經驗的人”,lame duck是指“競選連任失敗、即將卸任的官員”,也用來指“不中用的人”。任何美國官員——從市長、州長、參議員到總統——都有可能因無能而被稱為lameduck。