這8個短語很日常，起源卻出人意料
1. Pass the buck
推卸責任
We all know that buck is informal American English for a dollar. Indeed, it can also be used for an Australian dollar, a New Zealand dollar, a South African rand, and an Indian rupee – but none of those senses are related to pass the buck, meaning ‘shift the responsibility to someone else’.
我們都知道buck表示美元，是一個不正式的美式英語詞。它還能用來指澳元、新西蘭元、南非幣和印度盧比——但是沒有一個意思和推卸責任的短語有關。
This particular buck is ‘an article placed as a reminder in front of a player whose turn it is to deal at poker’ – which means passing it make much more sense. This item also gives us the phrase the buck stops here; both figurative phrases have moved far beyond their poker origins.
這裏的buck特指用來提醒打撲克牌的一件東西，這樣傳遞它就講得通了，而且還有一個短語是責任止於此。這些比喻性的短語比它們源自撲克牌的用法更常用。
2. Turn over a new leaf
洗心革面
You might have wondered what raking the lawn had to do with the decision to ‘start to act or behave in a better or more responsible way’. Well, it has nothing to do with foliage, in case you were wondering, but relates to another common use of leaf: one of the pages in a book. A similar derivation gives us to take a leaf out of someone’s book, meaning ‘imitate or emulate someone in a particular way’.
你或許會好奇用耙子耙草坪跟洗心革面有什麼關係。事實上，它和枝葉沒有關係，而是和leaf另一個常用的意思有關：書頁。一個相似的衍伸詞組是take a leaf out of someone’s book，表示“模仿某人或把某人當做偶像”。
3. Push the envelope
挑戰極限
This envelope isn’t the sort you’d put letters in. As we discovered in a post about the linguistic influence of aviation, push the envelope was originally aviation slang relating to graphs of aerodynamic performance and exceeding the set of limiting combinations of speed and altitude.
這裏的envelope並不是平時放信件的那種，這個短語最初是航空俚語，和空氣動力性能有關，超出了速度和海拔的限定，所以有挑戰極限的意思。
4. Ring the changes
換湯不換藥
It came originally with allusion to bell-ringing and the different orders in which a peal of bells may be rung.
它最初和響鈴的典故有關，有不同的訂單，接着會有一串響鈴的聲音。
5. Leave someone in the lurch
不顧他人的安危
Lurch means ‘an abrupt uncontrolled movement, especially an unsteady tilt or roll’. It turns out that they’re unrelated; the word lurch in this phrase derives from the French lourche, which is the name of a game resembling backgammon. In French, you might find it in demeurer lourche, ‘be discomfited’.
Lurch表示突然失控的移動，尤其是不穩定的傾斜或滾動。但和這個短語沒有關係，短語裏的lurch起源於法語詞lourche，是個類似十五子棋的遊戲名稱。
6. Lick into shape
塑造，整頓
In Medieval Europe, it was believed that bears’ young were born shapeless, and licking into shape refers to the alleged practice of bears licking their offspring into ursine form.
在中世紀的歐洲，人們以爲年幼的熊出生時是不成形的，licking into shape據稱指的是熊會舔它們的後代，讓它們變成像熊的樣子。7. Flash in the pan
曇花一現的人或物
The flash arises from an explosion of gunpowder within the pan, which was a part of the lock that held the priming in old types of gun.
這裏的flash源自火藥的爆炸，是舊式手槍點火鎖的一部分。
8. Pull out all the stops
全力以赴
These stops are organ pipes of a particular tone and range of pitch and the handles which control them; by pulling all the stops out, you would create a louder, more elaborate sound.
這裏的stops是指特殊音調的風琴管、音域和控鍵，把這些都拔掉後，你能製造更大更精美的聲音。
