介绍:
Xiaohua: Hello, welcome to round table’s word of the week. This week, we are going to talk about some wedding-related words and phrases.
Mark: That’s right. There are lots of wedding-related words and phrases. And the unique thing about many of them is that you never really hear of them except in the context of a wedding.
One of the first ones is a very familiar phrase, is to go down the aisle. This is something we hear a lot. We hear: the bride looks beautiful. There she is with her husband-to-be, just about to go down the aisle. When people say this, they mean the center corridor between the seats inside a church. But this is one of most frequently misused words in the English language. In a church, there are two aisles. These aisles are on the sides of the main room of the church, not down the center. This will surprise many people because we are brought up with this phrase down the aisle.
Xiaohua: So what’s the name of center corridor then?
Mark: It’s actually called the nave. So the nave is the pathway where the bride walks. So you know, you can walk down the aisle, but if you do that, you will be walking down the side of the main room of the church, not down the center.
Xiaohua: That’s interesting: go down the aisle 这个词组表达的就是结婚的时候从教堂中间的那条通道走过去这时候的样子。那中国人可能经常会说走上红毯。但其实Mark指出教堂中间的那条走道叫做nave，教堂两边的走道才叫做aisle。That’s such an interesting misunderstanding.
Mark: Let’s have another one now. The people who get married, the happy couple: the bride and the groom. That’s a very interesting thing, isn’t it? Because a groom is also a word that is used to describe somebody who looks after a horse. I don’t know why that should be significant really in a wedding.
Xiaohua: Bride and Groom 或者是 bride and bridegroom就是新娘和新郎，但是groom在英文里又有男仆或马夫的意思。I checked it in the dictionary. Actually, in old English, bridegroom was called brydguma, and guma meant man at that time. But gradually this usage of guma being man disappeared. So later, people just somehow replaced guma with groom.
Mark: Yes. That’s very interesting. And also, the word bride does itself relate to horses just like groom does. Even now, there’ll be a public footpath in England where people can walk down there. But if it’s a public footpath where horses can also go down there, it’s called a public bridal-way.
Xiaohua: Also, something that bewilders me is the name for best man. We know that is the best man. But the equivalent of that for a bride is maid of honor. Now there doesn’t seem to be any resemblances between the two phrases.
Mark: No, well if we take a look how long these words have existed, maid of honor comes from American culture and is therefore much more recent. Whereas the idea of best man has been around a lot longer, hundreds and hundreds of years that’s been around. The origin of it is quite interesting. The idea was really that if the new husband wasn’t able to fulfill his duties as a husband to the bride, then the best man would step in. Now remember we’re talking about a time hundreds of years ago when man would be called off to fight and might be killed in a war leaving behind the wife and children. And so this is again where the best man would be expected to come in.
Xiaohua: Interesting and slightly scary story for me.
Mark: Actually, you know, traditionally it’s the new husband that chooses his best friend as the best man. Really I think the new bride should choose the best man, cause she is the one that theoretically might have to end up living with him and taking him on as her new husband.
Xiaohua: Oh my goodness! 所以在英文best man或者是男傧相还有这样一个奇怪的故事。就是在很久很久以前，当丈夫因为什么样的事故死去或者因为生病而不能履行丈夫的职责的时候，就要由男傧相来代替行使丈夫的权利和角色。So I guess then in this way, the best man should be called the second best man, because it’s really that what he is.
Mark: True. There is an old joke which is, you know, you must feel sorry for the bride, she never ends up marrying the best man.
Xiaohua: Yes. That is interesting.
Mark: As well as maid of honor which is sort of the female equivalent of the best man, this is coming from American culture. So has the idea of bridal shower that has been around in British culture for probably the last 10 or 15 years. I think really behind all this is marketing, you know. It’s a way of selling people stuff. So this is where the bride are given lots of presents by her besties, isn’t it?
Xiaohua: Yes. Bridal shower这个词我觉得很难翻译，算作婚前的新娘送礼会。Basically, it means you shower the bride with gifts prior to her marriage. Right?
Mark: It likes rain shower, but instead of it raining down with water, it’s raining down with gifts, which sounds wonderful, especially for those who sell the gifts.
Xiaohua: That’s true, and I think that’s effectively brings us to the end of this edition of Word of the Week.
