| 词源 |
sling the bat. British soldiers in 19th-century India coined this expression, which means to be able to speak a foreign language. No cricket bat is involved, the bat here being the Hindi bat, “language,” and the British slang sling meaning to utter or speak. Kipling used the phrase in 1892. Eventually, sling the bat meant to be able to speak not only Indian languages but any foreign language at all. |