英语词汇cutting up的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

cutting up; cut a Dido. To cut a Dido, or play a prank, though an almost obsolete expression, may be the origin of the more common phrase cutting up. The original cutup could be Dido, the legendary princess who founded and became queen of Carthage. The daughter of a Tyrian king, Dido married her un- cle and upon his murder by her brother Pygmalion sailed to the African coast with his treasure. There she purchased land from a native chieftain, with the provision that all the ground she could cover with an oxhide would be hers. She then cut the hide into thin strips long enough to enclose a space that be- came the fort of Carthage. In a later myth, Virgil’s Aeneid, Dido is the lover of Aeneas and commits suicide upon her own fu- neral pyre when he abandons her at the command of Jupiter. It’s a shame to spoil a good story, but the legend of Dido proba- bly arose because the fortress protecting Carthage was named Bozra. Bozra meant “fortress” in Phoenician but sounded like the Greek byrsa (oxhide) and most likely the tale was fabricated by some ancient Greek seeking to explain a fort named Oxhide.

词汇	cutting up
词源	cutting up; cut a Dido. To cut a Dido, or play a prank, though an almost obsolete expression, may be the origin of the more common phrase cutting up. The original cutup could be Dido, the legendary princess who founded and became queen of Carthage. The daughter of a Tyrian king, Dido married her un- cle and upon his murder by her brother Pygmalion sailed to the African coast with his treasure. There she purchased land from a native chieftain, with the provision that all the ground she could cover with an oxhide would be hers. She then cut the hide into thin strips long enough to enclose a space that be- came the fort of Carthage. In a later myth, Virgil’s Aeneid, Dido is the lover of Aeneas and commits suicide upon her own fu- neral pyre when he abandons her at the command of Jupiter. It’s a shame to spoil a good story, but the legend of Dido proba- bly arose because the fortress protecting Carthage was named Bozra. Bozra meant “fortress” in Phoenician but sounded like the Greek byrsa (oxhide) and most likely the tale was fabricated by some ancient Greek seeking to explain a fort named Oxhide.
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