英语词汇sack的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

sack; get the sack. Sack, according to legend, was the last word spoken at the Tower of Babel before the world’s languages were scrambled, and for this reason it retains a strikingly simi- lar form in over a dozen languages. As for get the sack, here ety- mologists have outdone themselves, with inventions worthy of Rabelais. By far the best tale is that Turkish sultans who grew tired of a wife or found her troublesome, had her taken from the harem, sewed up in a sack, and dumped into the Bosporus. As outrageous as the story seems, it could well be the origin of the old expression, which dates back to the Middle Ages, for such “sacking” was widespread among the Turks, and the Ro- mans similarly sewed up condemned criminals in sacks and tossed them in the Tiber. Most authorities, however, seem to accept with some reservations the explanation linking the phrase to the tools of medieval artisans and mechanics. Work- men generally carried their tools in a sack and for convenience’s sake left them in a safe place on the job overnight. When an unsatisfactory worker was fired, at the end of his last day on the job, his employer would hand him his pay and the sack con- taining his tools.

词汇	sack
词源	sack; get the sack. Sack, according to legend, was the last word spoken at the Tower of Babel before the world’s languages were scrambled, and for this reason it retains a strikingly simi- lar form in over a dozen languages. As for get the sack, here ety- mologists have outdone themselves, with inventions worthy of Rabelais. By far the best tale is that Turkish sultans who grew tired of a wife or found her troublesome, had her taken from the harem, sewed up in a sack, and dumped into the Bosporus. As outrageous as the story seems, it could well be the origin of the old expression, which dates back to the Middle Ages, for such “sacking” was widespread among the Turks, and the Ro- mans similarly sewed up condemned criminals in sacks and tossed them in the Tiber. Most authorities, however, seem to accept with some reservations the explanation linking the phrase to the tools of medieval artisans and mechanics. Work- men generally carried their tools in a sack and for convenience’s sake left them in a safe place on the job overnight. When an unsatisfactory worker was fired, at the end of his last day on the job, his employer would hand him his pay and the sack con- taining his tools.
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