英语词汇pack rat的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

pack rat; trade rat. A pack rat is a person who compulsively saves things, almost everything. He or she takes this name from the eastern pack rat (Neotoma flordiana), a plague carrier, which lives at virtually every altitude over a range from north- ern Canada to the Florida Keys. No other animal carries thiev- ery to such extremes, and its name has also become a synonym for a kleptomaniac or junk-picking miser. The capacious nest of the pack rat is usually a large, globe-shaped “castle” made of sticks, leaves, and grasses up to six feet high, resembling a small beaver lodge, but the nest can also be built in hollow logs, caves, abandoned cabins, openings of trees, and even under cactus plants in the desert. In its museum or treasure-house nest are found every bright shiny thing one can imagine, as well as some not-at-all shiny objects, including (all these stolen objects have been documented) keys, eyeglasses, coins, curren- cy, belt buckles, pens and pencils, lipsticks, watches, tinfoil, china, rags, socks, cartridge cases, bleached bones and skulls, sets of false teeth, and even mousetraps. The pack rat has been known to steal coins from the pockets of sleeping campers. A legend persists that it will leave something in return for what it takes, but less romantic observers theorize that the little crea- ture probably is passing by with something in its mouth when it comes upon a brighter trinket and drops whatever it is carry- ing to claim the glittering prize that some strange compulsion commands it to possess. Nevertheless, the legend persists, which accounts for the pack rat also being called the “trade rat.” See rat pack.

词汇	pack rat
词源	pack rat; trade rat. A pack rat is a person who compulsively saves things, almost everything. He or she takes this name from the eastern pack rat (Neotoma flordiana), a plague carrier, which lives at virtually every altitude over a range from north- ern Canada to the Florida Keys. No other animal carries thiev- ery to such extremes, and its name has also become a synonym for a kleptomaniac or junk-picking miser. The capacious nest of the pack rat is usually a large, globe-shaped “castle” made of sticks, leaves, and grasses up to six feet high, resembling a small beaver lodge, but the nest can also be built in hollow logs, caves, abandoned cabins, openings of trees, and even under cactus plants in the desert. In its museum or treasure-house nest are found every bright shiny thing one can imagine, as well as some not-at-all shiny objects, including (all these stolen objects have been documented) keys, eyeglasses, coins, curren- cy, belt buckles, pens and pencils, lipsticks, watches, tinfoil, china, rags, socks, cartridge cases, bleached bones and skulls, sets of false teeth, and even mousetraps. The pack rat has been known to steal coins from the pockets of sleeping campers. A legend persists that it will leave something in return for what it takes, but less romantic observers theorize that the little crea- ture probably is passing by with something in its mouth when it comes upon a brighter trinket and drops whatever it is carry- ing to claim the glittering prize that some strange compulsion commands it to possess. Nevertheless, the legend persists, which accounts for the pack rat also being called the “trade rat.” See rat pack.
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