| 词源 |
take a leaf out of one’s book. These words are never used lit- erally for “plagiarism,” to my knowledge. To take a leaf out of one’s book is simply a figurative expression meaning to imitate another person. It is usually highly complimentary to the per- son aped, for it means he is a model for whatever you wish to do, that he succeeds at it so well that it is best to do it his way. The expression is first recorded in 1809, but the saying it ap- pears to derive from, to turn over a new leaf, “to reform,” goes all the way back to Holinshed’s Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577). In the earlier phrase the leaves or pages are from a book of lessons or precepts. |