周文博

提到writings on the wall或者the writing on thewall，學(xué)生們首先想到的可能是電影《007：幽靈黨》的主題曲Writings On the Wall：…For you I have to riskit all/Cause the writing's on the wall…

1.The writing on the wall的淵源

事實(shí)上，The writing on the wall是一個(gè)常見于新聞報(bào)道或文學(xué)讀本的諺語，其淵源可以追溯到圣經(jīng)中的《舊約·但以理書》：伯沙撒王是新巴比倫王國的最后一位統(tǒng)治者，平日里悖逆放蕩，褻瀆上帝，有一次他在宮殿里設(shè)擺盛筵，飲酒作樂，并在席間贊美金、銀、銅、鐵、木、石所造的神。

2.《圣經(jīng)》對The writing on the wall的具體描述

圣經(jīng)中是這樣描述的：

5：5 Suddenly the fingers of a human hand ap-peared and wrote on the plaster of the wall.Hear the lamp stand in the royal palace.The king watched the hand as it wrote.

（伯沙撒王張皇失措，驚恐萬分，后來王后想起了被虜?shù)莫q太人中有一位聰慧的預(yù)言家但以理。但以理指明了這只手所寫的文字是上帝對他的警告……）

5：24 Therefore be sent the hand that wrote the in-scription.

5：25 This is the inscription that was written：MENE，MENE，TEKEL，PARSIN

5：26 This is what these words mean：Mene：God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.

5：27 Tekel：You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

5：28 Peres：Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

（伯沙撒王聽完之后表示驚奇，對但以理進(jìn)行了封賞，但并沒有采取任何實(shí)際行動，巴比倫國果然很快就被瑪代人和波斯人所滅，上帝的話得到了應(yīng)驗(yàn)。）

3.The writing on the wall在現(xiàn)實(shí)中的表達(dá)方式

我們不難看出，“the writing on the wall”的實(shí)際意義是“a sign or warning of impending disaster that something bad will happen”（迫在眉睫的兇兆；不祥之兆）。英語中這個(gè)短語有以下幾種表達(dá)方式：

1）The writing is on the wall（for something）

例句：To be honest，the writing has been on the wall for her business for a long time.事實(shí)上，她經(jīng)商不景氣的壞兆頭已出現(xiàn)一段時(shí)間了。

2）Somebody sees/reads the writing on the wall

例句：I saw the writing on the wall and resigned my job before 1 was fired.我看到了不祥之兆，因而在被解雇前就辭去了工作。

31 Something is the writing on the wall

例句：The huge increase in the rent is the writing on the wall for many small businesses.房租的大幅度上漲對許多小企業(yè)來說是個(gè)不祥之兆。

看完了上述解釋，我相信學(xué)生們今后在閱讀中，讀到含有the writing on the wall的句子時(shí)，就一定不會再按字面將其理解為“墻上的文字”了。

4.總結(jié)

英語學(xué)習(xí)中我們會碰到很多英語諺語，學(xué)生們在記憶與運(yùn)用時(shí)常犯的錯(cuò)誤就是按照字面意思機(jī)械理解，從而屢屢出錯(cuò)。其實(shí)很多諺語有著豐富的文化背景，如能深入了解其出處，不僅可以加深印象，更能充實(shí)自己的文化素養(yǎng)。