| 词源 |
keep a straight face. To refrain from laughing. One story has this expression deriving from Irish peat diggers, who have to make their spade thrusts perfectly vertical when digging out peat (thus keeping a straight spade face—“face” here the work- ing side of the implement). I can find no proof of this and the words more likely were suggested by someone trying to keep his face from squinching up in laughter. The phrase is first recorded in an 1897 issue of the Spectator: “The story is one which few people, to use an expressive vulgarism, will be able to read ‘with a straight face.’ ” |