| 词源 |
head over heels. As you might suspect, head over heels, for “a state of helplessness” (“He’s head over heels in love with her”) was originally heels over head. For nearly 500 years it was used that way, until in the late 18th century it was popularly corrupt- ed to its present topsy-turvy form. The allusion is probably to a somersault. There is no proof that the phrase is a translation of Catullus’s per caputque pedesque, “over head and heels,” or that it alludes to the practice of hanging criminals by the heels as a warning in medieval times—though anyone so hanged would certainly have been helpless. |