英语词汇in a pretty pickle的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

in a pretty pickle. In de pikel zitten, a Dutch phrase going back at least four centuries, literally means to sit in the salt so- lution used for preserving pickles. This saying apparently sug- gested the expression to be in a pretty pickle, an uncomfortable or sorry plight—like someone sitting in such a bath. Our word pickle comes from the Dutch. A sour pickle is perhaps the last thing anyone would expect to be named after a man, but at least one source claims that the word pickle derives from the name of William Beukel or Bukelz, a 14th-century Dutchman who supposedly first pickled fish, inventing the process by which we shrink and sour cucumbers. This pickled-herring theory may be a red herring, however. All the big dictionar- ies follow the O.E.D.’s lead in tracing pickle to the Medieval Dutch word pekel, whose origin is ultimately unknown.

词汇	in a pretty pickle
词源	in a pretty pickle. In de pikel zitten, a Dutch phrase going back at least four centuries, literally means to sit in the salt so- lution used for preserving pickles. This saying apparently sug- gested the expression to be in a pretty pickle, an uncomfortable or sorry plight—like someone sitting in such a bath. Our word pickle comes from the Dutch. A sour pickle is perhaps the last thing anyone would expect to be named after a man, but at least one source claims that the word pickle derives from the name of William Beukel or Bukelz, a 14th-century Dutchman who supposedly first pickled fish, inventing the process by which we shrink and sour cucumbers. This pickled-herring theory may be a red herring, however. All the big dictionar- ies follow the O.E.D.’s lead in tracing pickle to the Medieval Dutch word pekel, whose origin is ultimately unknown.
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