英语词汇navvy的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

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.

词汇	navvy
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.
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