You can be uncouth but not "couth."

你可以表現得既粗俗也不文雅。

You can be ruthless, but good luck trying to show somebody that you have "ruth" unless you happen to be married to someone named Ruth. [To my sensitive husband. Love, Ruth.]

你可以無情，但你如果想表現得有情 (ruth) 一點...祝你好運，除非你剛好與名為「有情」(Ruth) 的女孩結婚。[致我性格敏感的老公，愛你的 Ruth。]

It's bad to be unkempt but impossible to be "kempt," or "sheveled" as opposed to disheveled.

蓬頭垢面 (unkempt) 不是件好事，但要一塵不染 (kempt) 又不太可能，或是比較整理好的 (shelved) 跟被弄亂的 (di-sheveled)。

There are other things that make no more sense than those but that seem normal now because the sands of time have buried where they came from.

還有其他比以上的例子更無邏輯可言，不過這些事現在看來都十分平常，因為時間之砂掩蓋了這些變化的來源。

For example, did you ever wonder why a nickname for Edward is Ned?

例如，你是否想過為何 Edward 的綽號是 Ned？

Where'd the N come from?

這裡的 N 是從哪裡來呢?

It's the same with Nellie for Ellen.

這和 Nellie 是 Ellen 的綽號是相同的變化。

Afterall, if someone's name is Ethan, we don't nickname him Nethan, nor do we call our favorite Maria, Nmaria.

但追根究柢，如果有個人叫 Ethan，我們不會叫他 Nethan，我們也不會把 Maria 叫成 Nmaria。

In fact, if anyone did, our primary urge would be to either scold them or gently hide them away until the company had departed.

事實上，假如有人這麼做，我們的第一反應不是責罵他，要不就是輕巧地隱藏這件事，就是直到這樣的錯誤不再發生。

All these nicknames trace back to a mistake, although, a perfectly understandable one.

然而，這些綽號的源起都是可以追溯回某些錯誤，但，那是些可理解的錯誤。

In fact, even the word nickname is weird.

事實上，就連綽號 (nickname) 這個字的由來都很古怪。

What's so "nick" about a nickname?

「綽」號究竟有多麼錯誤呢?

Is it that it's a name that has a nick in it?

是因為某個名字裡面有個裂縫 (nick) 嗎?

Let's face it, not likely.

當然...不是這樣。

Actually, in Old English, the word was ekename, and eke meant also or other.

事實上在古英文裡，確實有個字叫 ekename，eke 是「其他、或」的意思。

You can see eke still used in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in a sentence like, [speaking Middle English] in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in a sentence like, which meant, "When Zephyr also with his sweet breath."

你仍可以在喬叟的坎特伯里故事集當中讀到 eke 這個字，有個句子說「當 Zephyrus 以彼如蜜般的喘息」，意思是指「Zephyr 用他那甜美的呼吸」。

Ekename meant "also name."

ekename 有「別名」的意思。

What happened was that when people said, "an ekename," it could sound like they were saying, "a nekename," and after a while, so many people were hearing it that way that they started saying "that's my nickname," instead of "that's my ekename."

這是因為當以前的人在說 an ekename 會聽起來像在說 a "nekename"，久而久之因為大家都誤解了，所以他們開始告訴別人說「這是我的 nickname」，而不是，這是我的 ekename。

Now, the word had a stray n at the front that started as a mistake, but from now on was what the word really was.

因此到現在這個字就有個 N 出現在字頭，這本來是個錯誤，但久而久之就積非成是。

It was rather as if you had gum on the bottom of your shoe and stepped on a leaf, dragged that leaf along for the rest of your life, were buried wearing that shoe and went to heaven in it, to spend eternity wedded to that stray, worn-out leaf.

就像是有塊口香糖黏在你鞋子底下，接著你踩到一片葉子，然後踏著那片葉子走過你的一生，死的時候那鞋也跟著你一起埋葬，上天堂時你也穿著那鞋，從此那片在腳底下的葉子彷彿就成了你身體的一部分。

Ekename picked up an n and never let it go.

同樣的道理，ekename 自從帶上 N 後，從此也離不開它了。

The same thing happened with other words.

相同的事也發生在其他的字上面。

Old English speakers cut "otches" into wood.

古英文說在木頭上砍出一個缺口應該是 "cut an otch"。

But after centuries of being asked to cut an otch into something, it was easy to think you were cutting a notch instead, and pretty soon you were.

但從沒有人搞清楚是 cut an otch 還是 cut a notch，過了幾世紀，人們也遺忘了 notch 的正確唸法應該是 otch，事情就是這樣來的。

In a world where almost no one could read, it was easier for what people heard to become, after a while, what it started to actually be.

在一個多數人不識字的時代，人們很容易搞混，並且把所聽到的錯誤說法當作原本正確的發音。

Here's where the Ned-style nicknames come in.

這就是為何 N 開頭的綽號會出現。

Old English was more like German than our English is now, and just as in German, my is "mein," in Old English, my was meen.

古英文比起現代英文更像是德文，在德文中，「我的」唸做 mein，等同於在古英文裡「我的」(my) 唸做 meen。

You would say "meen book," actually "boke" in Old English, or meen cat.

你會說我的 (meen) 書，事實上古英文裡的「書」 是唸 boke，或是 meen (我的) 貓。

And just as today, we might refer to our child as my Dahlia or my Laura, in Old English, they would say, "meen Ed".

就像今天，我們會把我們的小孩叫成我的 Dahlia，或是我的 Laura，在古英文我們會說 Meen Ed (我的小艾德)。

That is mein Ed, mein Ellie.

就是在德文的 mein Ed (我的小艾德)，mein Ellie (我的小愛莉)。

You see where this is going.

從上面的例子你可以看到整個發展脈絡。

As time passed, meen morphed into the my we know today.

隨著時間演進 meen 變成今天我們熟知的樣子 (my)。

That meant that when people said, "mein Ed," it sounded like they were saying my Ned.

以前人在說 Mein ED (我的小艾德) 就像他們在說 my Ned。

That is, it sounded like whenever someone referred to Edward affectionately, they said Ned instead of Ed.

聽來就像親切地叫某個人 Edward，因此久而久之人們就把 Ed 叫成 Ned。

Behold, the birth of a nickname!

你看，綽號 (nickname) 就是這樣來的！

Or an ekename.

或說「綽號 (ekename)」是這樣來的。

Hence, also Nellie for Ellen and Nan for Ann, and even in the old days, Nabby for Abigal.

同樣道理可以解釋 Nellie 跟 Ellen 以及 Nan 與 Ann，或古早日子常說的 Nabby 跟 Abigal。

President John Adam's wife Abigail's nickname was Nabby.

前總統約翰˙亞當的妻子 Abigail 綽號就是 Nabby。

All sorts of words are like this.

其他類型的字型變換也都像這樣。

Old English speakers wore "naprons," but a "napron" sounds like an apron, and that gave birth to a word apron that no one in Beowulf would have recognized.

古英國人穿 napron，可是 napron 聽起來像 apron (圍裙)，apron (圍裙) 這個貝奧武夫時代的人不會認得的字因此誕生。

Umpire started as numpires, too.

umpire (裁判) 這個字也是從 numpires 變化而來。

If all of this sounds like something sloppy that we modern people would never do, then think about something you hear all the time and probably say: "a whole nother."

如果你覺得以上的例子都是在現代不會發生的粗心錯誤，想想有個你一直聽到，或許常常說的，例如，「另一個全然不同的 (A whole nother)」。

What's nother?

什麼是 nother ?

We have the word another, of course, but it's composed of an and other, or so we thought.

字典裡有「其他 (another)」這個字，但它是由 an 跟 other所組成的，你真的這麼確定？

Yet, when we slide whole into the middle, we don't say, "a whole other," we clip that n off of the an and stick it to other and create a new word, nother.

如果把「全部 (whole)」插入到句子中間，我們不會說 a whole other，而是把 n 從 an 中拿下來放到 other 前面，nother 因此誕生。

For a long time, nobody was writing these sort of things down or putting them in a dictionary, but that's only because writing is more codified now than it was 1,000 years ago.

有很長的一段時間沒有人寫下這類的變化或把他們收入到字典，但那是因為書寫系統在一千多年前並沒有當今如此地完善。

So, when you see a weird word, remember that there might be a whole nother side to the story.

所以當你看到一個奇怪的字，記住，它很可能有另一個你意想不到的 (a whole nother) 故事。