關於 why american english is easier than british ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

9 common phrases you didn't know have dark origin stories
九個擁有不為人知黑暗背景的英文片語

Riding shotgun真的跟霰彈槍有關
"Riding shotgun" is the ideal place to ride during on a road trip. But in the Old West, the person sitting in the passenger seat was required to do a whole lot more than find the perfect radio station.
在現代，riding shotgun指的是汽車上路旅行的理想座位，也就是副駕駛座。在從前的美國西部，副駕駛座上的人要做的可不僅僅是調到一個好電臺那麼簡單。
Stagecoach drivers in the Old West needed a person to literally "ride shotgun." The passenger would carry a shotgun in order to scare off robbers who might want to attack them, according to Reader's Digest.
根據美國雜誌《讀者文摘》的文章表示，過去在美國西部趕馬車的人需要有人在旅行途中保護駕駛。副駕駛座上的人要手持霰彈槍來嚇阻想要攻擊馬車的強盜。

Highway robbery真的是搶劫
Most people would agree that paying $10 for your favorite cup of coffee is highway robbery. But the original definition of highway robbery once meant literally robbing travelers on or near the highway. The first known usage of the phrase was in 1611.
多數人會認同一杯可口的咖啡要價10美元（310元新台幣）是highway robbery（敲竹槓）。但是highway robbery原來的意思就是在公路上或公路附近搶劫旅客。這個片語的使用最早出現於1611年。

Painting the town red來自醉鬼的惡行
For you and your crew, "painting the town red" probably means getting glammed up for a fun night of drinks and dancing. However, the phrase originates from a night out that makes dancing on the bar seem tame.
對你和你的朋友們來說，painting the town red的意思是打扮得光鮮亮麗，晚上出去喝酒、跳舞。但是，這個片語原本的意思比在酒吧跳舞還要勁爆多了。
Back in 1837, the Marquis of Waterford went out for a night of drinking with some of his friends, according to Phrases.org. Afterward, the group went through the streets of a small English town destroying property. They broke windows, knocked over flower pots, and damaged door knockers. But things got really crazy when they got their hands on some red paint and literally painted the town red, including doors, a tollgate, and a swan statue.
http://xn--phrases-901ow6v.org/ 網站的記載，1837年，沃特福德侯爵和幾個朋友夜出喝酒，後來他們經過一個英格蘭小鎮的街道時開始搞破壞：砸碎窗戶、打翻花盆、損壞門環。這些酒鬼拿到了一些紅油漆後，局面就開始失控了，酒鬼們把整個城鎮都塗成了紅色，包括門、一道關卡和一座天鵝雕像。

Pulling someone’s leg並不總是在開玩笑
You probably think that pulling someone's leg is all in good fun. After all, what's the harm in a little joke, right? This commonly used phrase that today means playing an innocent joke meant something a lot more sinister years ago.
你大概以為pulling someone's leg（開某人的玩笑）都很好玩。畢竟，開個小玩笑無傷大雅。這個常用片語在今天的意思是開個沒有惡意的玩笑，但多年前的意思卻邪惡得多了。
Thieves in 18th and 19th Century London would drag their victims to the ground by their legs in order to rob them, according to Phrases.org.
http://xn--phrases-901ow6v.org/ 網站的記載，18和19世紀時，倫敦的小偷會拉住受害人的腿將其拖倒在地，然後搶劫財物。

Paying through the nose北歐海盜真的做得出
You won't be happy if you think you're paying through the nose for something. Although you may feel like you're getting ripped off, at least you get to keep your face intact. The roots of this commonly used idiom come from a brutal tactic of The Dane Vikings of slitting someone's nose from tip to eyebrow if the person refused to pay their tax, according to Grammarist.
如果你覺得自己paying through the nose for something（為某件東西花了很多錢），肯定高興不起來。不過，就算被「剝皮」，至少你的臉是完好無損的。根據Grammarist網站記載，這個常用片語來自於北歐海盜的一種殘酷手段，如果有人拒絕交稅，就將此人的鼻子從鼻頭到眉毛間劃開。

如果有人read you the riot act 那你就有大麻煩了
After your parents "read you the riot act" for breaking curfew, you might have been facing a few weeks in your room without a television. But in 18th Century England, being read the Riot Act meant you could be facing time behind bars.
如果你的父母因為你深夜不歸而read you the riot act（責罰你），你可能將面臨幾星期的禁足，還不能看電視。但是在18世紀的英格蘭，being read the Riot Act（宣讀《暴動法案》）代表著你可能要進監獄。
The Riot Act was implemented in 1715 and stated that the British government could consider any group of 12 or more people a threat to public safety and be ordered to break up, according to Atlas Obscura. Anyone refusing to disperse could be arrested or forcibly removed from the premises.
據Atlas Obscura網站記載，1715年實施的《暴動法案》指出，英國政府將會把任何12人以上的團體視為對公共安全的威脅，並勒令其解散。任何拒絕解散的人將被逮捕或強行驅逐。

Letting the cat out of the bag可能是陰險的行為
Today, "letting the cat out of the bag" is used to mean spilling someone's secret. But one of the supposed origins of the phrase was rooted in deceit.
在現代，letting the cat out of the bag指的是洩露某人的秘密。但該片語的原意和欺騙有關。
Supposedly in Medieval times, farmers would go to markets to purchase pigs. Most of the time, their bag would contain the animal they paid for. But if they bought from a shady dealer, they would open their bag to find an unpleasant surprise - their pricey pig had been swapped for a much less expensive cat.
據說，在中世紀時期，農民會到集市去買豬。大多數時候，這些農民付錢後就會拿到裝在麻袋裡的豬。但如果他們是從不良商販那裡買的，農民打開麻袋後會驚愕地發現高價買來的豬居然被偷龍轉鳳成不值錢多的貓。
But as Mental Floss notes, there are quite a few holes with this theory.
不過，Mental Floss網站指出，這一說法漏洞百出。

Baker's dozen是為了查驗麵包師傅的誠信
You may be thankful to count on that 13th roll in your baker's dozen, but you can think a rather sinister rule for its creation.
從麵包師傅那裡買了一打麵包，結果一數有13個，你可能會挺感激的，但是baker's dozen的起源卻和一條殘忍的規定有關。
It all traces back to a 13th-century British rule called the Assize of Bread and Ale. The rule stated that if bakers were caught selling smaller or low-quality bread to customers, they could have their hands chopped off.
這要追溯到13世紀英國一項名為《麵包和麥酒法令》的法規。這條法規規定，如果麵包師傅被發現賣給顧客不足量或劣質的麵包，這些師傅們的雙手就會被剁掉。
That's why it was just easier to throw a 13th piece into the pile — thus creating the baker's dozen.
所以往一打麵包裡多放一個就更保險一些，於是，麵包師傅的一打（baker's dozen）就成了13個。

Meeting a deadline曾經真的是「死線」
When you get that big report to your boss on time, "meeting a deadline" is a good thing. But the phrase was coined during the American Civil War and had some deadly consequences.
如果你準時將重要報告交給領導，meeting a deadline就是好事。但這個片語是在美國南北戰爭期間被發明的，當時可是會招來致命的後果。
The deadline was apparently a line inside of the area where Federal prisoners of war were kept. If a prisoner attempted to cross the line, they would be shot, according to Bloomsbury International.
布魯姆斯伯里國際英語學校稱，很顯然，deadline是聯邦監獄中戰犯關押區內的一條線。如果有犯人試圖越過這條線，他們就會被槍斃。

#高雄人 #學習英文 請找 #多益達人林立英文
#成人英文
#高中英文
#多益家教班
#商用英文

A GOOD READ from one of the greatest leader that lived, #SINGAPORE's founding man, #LeeKuanYew

THIS MUST BE SHARED AND THOROUGHLY READ BY EVERY FILIPINO... Its quite long but it will surely strengthen our minds but then at the end, I was like "SAYANG!!!"
It came from the SINGAPORE'S FOUNDING MAN ITSELF, former Prime Minister LEE KUAN YEW on how the Philippines should have become, IF ONLY...

I've just read it and, its point blank!
Its a good read
____________

(The following excerpt is taken from pages 299 – 305 from Lee Kuan Yew’s book “From Third World to First”, Chapter 18 “Building Ties with Thailand, the Philippines, and Brunei”)

*

The Philippines was a world apart from us, running a different style of politics and government under an American military umbrella. It was not until January 1974 that I visited President Marcos in Manila. When my Singapore Airlines plane flew into Philippine airspace, a small squadron of Philippine Air Force jet fighters escorted it to Manila Airport. There Marcos received me in great style – the Filipino way. I was put up at the guest wing of Malacañang Palace in lavishly furnished rooms, valuable objects of art bought in Europe strewn all over. Our hosts were gracious, extravagant in hospitality, flamboyant. Over a thousand miles of water separated us. There was no friction and little trade. We played golf, talked about the future of ASEAN, and promised to keep in touch.

His foreign minister, Carlos P. Romulo, was a small man of about five feet some 20 years my senior, with a ready wit and a self-deprecating manner about his size and other limitations. Romulo had a good sense of humor, an eloquent tongue, and a sharp pen, and was an excellent dinner companion because he was a wonderful raconteur, with a vast repertoire of anecdotes and witticisms. He did not hide his great admiration for the Americans. One of his favourite stories was about his return to the Philippines with General MacArthur. As MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte, the water reached his knees but came up to Romulo’s chest and he had to swim ashore. His good standing with ASEAN leaders and with Americans increased the prestige of the Marcos administration. Marcos had in Romulo a man of honor and integrity who helped give a gloss of respectability to his regime as it fell into disrepute in the 1980s.

In Bali in 1976, at the first ASEAN summit held after the fall of Saigon, I found Marcos keen to push for greater economic cooperation in ASEAN. But we could not go faster than the others. To set the pace, Marcos and I agreed to implement a bilateral Philippines-Singapore across-the-board 10 percent reduction of existing tariffs on all products and to promote intra-ASEAN trade. We also agreed to lay a Philippines-Singapore submarine cable. I was to discover that for him, the communiqué was the accomplishment itself; its implementation was secondary, an extra to be discussed at another conference.

We met every two to three years. He once took me on a tour of his library at Malacañang, its shelves filled with bound volumes of newspapers reporting his activities over the years since he first stood for elections. There were encyclopedia-size volumes on the history and culture of the Philippines with his name as the author. His campaign medals as an anti-Japanese guerrilla leader were displayed in glass cupboards. He was the undisputed boss of all Filipinos. Imelda, his wife, had a penchant for luxury and opulence. When they visited Singapore before the Bali summit they came in stye in two DC8’s, his and hers.

Marcos did not consider China a threat for the immediate future, unlike Japan. He did not rule out the possibility of an aggressive Japan, if circumstances changed. He had memories of the horrors the Imperial Army had inflicted on Manila. We had strongly divergent views on the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia. While he, pro forma, condemned the Vietnamese occupation, he did not consider it a danger to the Philippines. There was the South China Sea separating them and the American navy guaranteed their security. As a result, Marcos was not active on the Cambodian question. Moreover, he was to become preoccupied with the deteriorating security in his country.

Marcos, ruling under martial law, had detained opposition leader Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino, reputed to be as charismatic and powerful a campaigner as he was. He freed Aquino and allowed him to go to the United States. As the economic situation in the Philippines deteriorated, Aquino announced his decision to return. Mrs. Marcos issued several veiled warnings. When the plane arrived at Manila Airport from Taipei in August 1983, he was shot as he descended from the aircraft. A whole posse of foreign correspondents with television camera crews accompanying him on the aircraft was not enough protection.

International outrage over the killing resulted in foreign banks stopping all loans to the Philippines, which owed over US$25 billion and could not pay the interest due. This brought Marcos to the crunch. He sent his minister for trade and industry, Bobby Ongpin, to ask me for a loan of US$300-500 million to meet the interest payments. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “We will never see that money back.” Moreover, I added, everyone knew that Marcos was seriously ill and under constant medication for a wasting disease. What was needed was a strong, healthy leader, not more loans.

Shortly afterward, in February 1984, Marcos met me in Brunei at the sultanate’s independence celebrations. He had undergone a dramatic physical change. Although less puffy than he had appeared on television, his complexion was dark as if he had been out in the sun. He was breathing hard as he spoke, his voice was soft, eyes bleary, and hair thinning. He looked most unhealthy. An ambulance with all the necessary equipment and a team of Filipino doctors were on standby outside his guest bungalow. Marcos spent much of the time giving me a most improbable story of how Aquino had been shot.

As soon as all our aides left, I went straight to the point, that no bank was going to lend him any money. They wanted to know who was going to succeed him if anything were to happen to him; all the bankers could see that he no longer looked healthy. Singapore banks had lent US$8 billion of the US$25 billion owing. The hard fact was they were not likely to get repayment for some 20 years. He countered that it would be only eight years. I said the bankers wanted to see a strong leader in the Philippines who could restore stability, and the Americans hoped the election in May would throw up someone who could be such a leader. I asked whom he would nominate for the election. He said Prime Minister Cesar Virata. I was blunt. Virata was a nonstarter, a first-class administrator but no political leader; further, his most politically astute colleague, defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile, was out of favour. Marcos was silent, then he admitted that succession was the nub of the problem. If he could find a successor, there would be a solution. As I left, he said, “You are a true friend.” I did not understand him. It was a strange meeting.

With medical care, Marcos dragged on. Cesar Virata met me in Singapore in January the following year. He was completely guileless, a political innocent. He said that Mrs. Imelda Marcos was likely to be nominated as the presidential candidate. I asked how that could be when there were other weighty candidates, including Juan Ponce Enrile and Blas Ople, the labor minister. Virata replied it had to do with “flow of money; she would have more money than other candidates to pay for the votes needed for nomination by the party and to win the election. He added that if she were the candidate, the opposition would put up Mrs. Cory Aquino and work up the people’s feelings. He said the economy was going down with no political stability.

The denouement came in February 1986 when Marcos held presidential elections which he claimed he won. Cory Aquino, the opposition candidate, disputed this and launched a civil disobedience campaign. Defense Minister Juan Enrile defected and admitted election fraud had taken place, and the head of the Philippine constabulary, Lieutenant General Fidel Ramos, joined him. A massive show of “people power” in the streets of Manila led to a spectacular overthrow of a dictatorship. The final indignity was on 25 February 1986, when Marcos and his wife fled in U.S. Air Force helicopters from Malacañang Palace to Clark Air Base and were flown to Hawaii. This Hollywood-style melodrama could only have happened in the Philippines.

Mrs. Aquino was sworn in as president amid jubilation. I had hopes that this honest, God-fearing woman would help regain confidence for the Philippines and get the country back on track. I visited her that June, three months after the event. She was a sincere, devout Catholic who wanted to do her best for her country by carrying out what she believed her husband would have done had he been alive, namely, restore democracy to the Philippines. Democracy would then solve their economic and social problems. At dinner, Mrs. Aquino seated the chairman of the constitutional commission, Chief Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, next to me. I asked the learned lady what lessons her commission had learned from the experience of the last 40 years since independence in 1946 would guide her in drafting the constitution. She answered without hesitation, “We will not have any reservations or limitations on our democracy. We must make sure that no dictator can ever emerge to subvert the constitution.” Was there no incompatibility of the American-type separation of powers with the culture and habits of the Filipino people that had caused problems for the presidents before Marcos? Apparently none.

Endless attempted coups added to Mrs. Aquino’s problems. The army and the constabulary had been politicized. Before the ASEAN summit in December 1987, a coup was threatened. Without President Suharto’s firm support the summit would have been postponed and confidence in Aquino’s government undermined. The Philippine government agreed that the responsibility for security should be shared between them and the other ASEAN governments, in particular the Indonesian government. General Benny Moerdani, President Suharto’s trusted aide, took charge. He positioned an Indonesian warship in the middle of Manila Bay with helicopters and a commando team ready to rescue the ASEAN heads of government if there should be a coup attempt during the summit. I was included in their rescue plans. I wondered if such a rescue could work but decided to go along with the arrangements, hoping that the show of force would scare off the coup leaders. We were all confined to the Philippine Plaza Hotel by the seafront facing Manila Bay where we could see the Indonesian warship at anchor. The hotel was completely sealed off and guarded. The summit went off without any mishap. We all hoped that this show of united support for Mrs. Aquino’s government at a time when there were many attempts to destabilize it would calm the situation.

It made no difference. There were more coup attempts, discouraging investments badly needed to create jobs. This was a pity because they had so many able people, educated in the Philippines and the United States. Their workers were English-speaking, at least in Manila. There was no reason why the Philippines should not have been one of the more successful of the ASEAN countries. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the most developed, because America had been generous in rehabilitating the country after the war. Something was missing, a gel to hold society together. The people at the top, the elite mestizos, had the same detached attitude to the native peasants as the mestizos in their haciendas in Latin America had toward their peons. They were two different societies: Those at the top lived a life of extreme luxury and comfort while the peasants scraped a living, and in the Philippines it was a hard living. They had no land but worked on sugar and coconut plantations.They had many children because the church discouraged birth control. The result was increasing poverty.

It was obvious that the Philippines would never take off unless there was substantial aid from the United States. George Shultz, the secretary of state, was sympathetic and wanted to help but made clear to me that the United States would be better able to do something if ASEAN showed support by making its contribution. The United States was reluctant to go it alone and adopt the Philippines as its special problem. Shultz wanted ASEAN to play a more prominent role to make it easier for the president to get the necessary votes in Congress. I persuaded Shultz to get the aid project off the ground in 1988, before President Reagan’s second term of office ended. He did. There were two meetings for a Multilateral Assistance Initiative (Philippines Assistance Programme): The first in Tokyo in 1989 brought US$3.5 billion in pledges, and the second in Hong Kong in 1991, under the Bush administration, yielded US$14 billion in pledges. But instability in the Philippines did not abate. This made donors hesitant and delayed the implementation of projects.

Mrs. Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, whom she had backed, was more practical and established greater stability. In November 1992, I visited him. In a speech to the 18th Philippine Business Conference, I said, “I do not believe democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy.” In private, President Ramos said he agreed with me that British parliamentary-type constitutions worked better because the majority party in the legislature was also the government. Publicly, Ramos had to differ.

He knew well the difficulties of trying to govern with strict American-style separation of powers. The senate had already defeated Mrs. Aquino’s proposal to retain the American bases. The Philippines had a rambunctious press but it did not check corruption. Individual press reporters could be bought, as could many judges. Something had gone seriously wrong. Millions of Filipino men and women had to leave their country for jobs abroad beneath their level of education. Filipino professionals whom we recruited to work in Singapore are as good as our own. Indeed, their architects, artists, and musicians are more artistic and creative than ours. Hundreds of thousands of them have left for Hawaii and for the American mainland. It is a problem the solution to which has not been made easier by the workings of a Philippine version of the American constitution.

The difference lies in the culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial. Insignificant amounts of the loot have been recovered, yet his wife and children were allowed to return and engage in politics. They supported the winning presidential and congressional candidates with their considerable resources and reappeared in the political and social limelight after the 1998 election that returned President Joseph Estrada. General Fabian Ver, Marcos’s commander-in-chief who had been in charge of security when Aquino was assassinated, had fled the Philippines together with Marcos in 1986. When he died in Bangkok, the Estrada government gave the general military honors at his burial. One Filipino newspaper, Today, wrote on 22 November 1998, “Ver, Marcos and the rest of the official family plunged the country into two decades of lies, torture, and plunder. Over the next decade, Marcos’s cronies and immediate family would tiptoe back into the country, one by one – always to the public’s revulsion and disgust, though they showed that there was nothing that hidden money and thick hides could not withstand.” Some Filipinos write and speak with passion. If they could get their elite to share their sentiments and act, what could they not have achieved?

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SAYANG! kindly share.