| 词源 |
navvy. This manual laborer or ditchdigger takes his name from the esteemed navigator. Navvy for such an occupation may have been suggested, in about 1825, by a joke about British canal diggers being directors or navigators of ships (the ships could only sail in the directions they dug). Brewer, however, has it this way: “Canals were thought of as lines of inland navi- gation, and a tavern built by the side of a canal was called a ‘Navigation Inn’. Hence it happened that the men employed in excavating canals were called ‘navigators,’ shortened into nav- vies.” See also work like a navvy. |