H ave you heard the expression "building castles in the air"? In olden times, powerful people built castles, which are large stone buildings often surrounded by water, to protect themselves against attacks. To build castles in the air means to daydream about things that cannot be achieved or to make ambitious plans for something without actually doing anything to make those plans happen. You are building castles in the air if you always daydream about becoming a rich and famous movie star but do not learn how to act. Last week, legislative and executive councillor Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung made a mistake when he used the expression on radio while talking about political reforms.
He said Hong Kong people should try to get the reforms that are possible instead of daydreaming about reforms that are not achievable. But instead of saying people should not build castles in the air, he said people should not waste time "castling our home in the air". Lam Kin-fung got the expression mixed up. There is no such expression as "castling our home in the air". The word "castling" is mostly used to describe a move in a chess game. On the same day, the controller for the Centre for Health Protection, Dr Leung Ting-hung, wrongly pronounced the country Guinea when he talked about the Ebola outbreak. Unlike the word "idea" where the letter "a" is pronounced, the letter "a" in Guinea is not pronounced, just like the letter "a" in tea. But Dr Leung pronounced the letter "a" when he said Guinea.
每當我聽到政府官員或政客犯了些英語錯誤，我都很想寫出來，好讓我們都能從他們的錯誤中學習。可是我又常常擔心，要是我指出他們的錯處，就會令他們灰心，不想再說英語。我不想挫敗他們， 因為現在他們已經很少說英語了。我仔細想了好久（thought long and hard），才決定要寫幾個我上星期從英語電台中聽到的錯處。習語think long and hard是指做決定前長時間的仔細思量。
你可有聽過習語 building castles in the air﹖在古時，有權勢的人會建造城堡（castles），通常以水四面圍繞，防避他人攻擊。To build castles in the air是指人們建造空中樓閣，幻想一些不設實際的事情，或雄心壯志地計劃卻沒有實質行動。若你終日發白日夢，想像自己會成為有錢又知名的電影明星，卻沒去學習怎樣演戲，那你就在building castles in the air。上星期，立法會及行政會議成員林健鋒在電台上談及政改時，卻說錯了這個習語。
他說，香港人應嘗試爭取可行的政改，而非幻想一些不可達成的政改。但他說的倒不是叫人不要build castles in the air，而是叫人別浪費時間"castling our home in the air"。林健鋒混淆了，因為根本就沒有"castling our home in the air"這個習語。Castling通常是指國際象棋中的「易位」步法。同日，衛生防護中心總監梁挺雄醫生談及伊波拉病毒爆發時，讀錯了畿內亞這個國家。不像idea中的a字會讀出來，Guinea中的a是不發音的，像tea裏的a。但梁說Guinea時，卻把a音讀了出來。mickchug@gmail.com
中譯:七刻
Michael Chugani 褚簡寧
Source: http://news.stheadline.com/dailynews/headline_news_detail_columnist.asp?id=297349§ion_name=wtt&kw=126