| 词源 |
canals, canali. In 1877 the Italian astronomer Giovanni Vir- ginio Schiaparelli (1835–1910) observed faint lines on Mars through his telescope and in his treatise on the subject called them canali, Italian for “channels.” But his English translator erroneously translated canali as “canals,” a word carrying a strong connotation of something manmade, which canali doesn’t. In any case, the long search by astronomers for life on Mars, suggested by such “manmade canals,” was probably in- spired by this poor translation of Schiaparelli’s work. |