| 释义 |
ˈdouble-talk, double talk orig. U.S.
[talk n.]
a. Deliberately unintelligible speech; speech that is a mixture of real and invented words; gibberish.
b. Verbal expression intended to be, or which may be, construed in more than one sense; deliberately ambiguous or imprecise language; used esp. of political language that is subject to arbitrary national or party interpretation. Hence double-talker, one who uses such language; double-talk v. intr.; double-talking vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1938New York Panorama (Amer. Guide Ser.) vi. 156 Of late a humorously conceived system of language corruption called double talk..has made itself felt. Ibid. 157 Double talk is created by mixing plausible-sounding gibberish into ordinary conversation, the speaker keeping a straight face or dead pan and enunciating casually or off the cuff. 1941Time 16 June 61/1 Thirteen recorded versions of this pandemic double-talk ballad are available. 1945H. I. Phillips Private Purkey's Private Peace xxii. 129 We got the right slant on bullies, greaseballs, double talkers, supermen, and dopes. 1948Auden Age of Anxiety vi. 125 And all species of space respond in our own Contradictory dialect, the double talk Of ambiguous bodies. 1950Amer. Speech XXV. 190 Back in Tsarist times Lenin and his associates inaugurated this double-talk and double-writing—especially the latter—in order to deceive the Tsarist censors and police. 1952C. Day Lewis tr. Virgil's Aeneid ix. 203 You'll find no Atridae here, no double-talking Ulysses. 1956Ann. Reg. 1955 45 The ‘directive’..was itself a masterpiece of the familiar technique of double talk. Terms such as ‘free elections’, ‘free contacts’..meant different things in East and West. 1957New Statesman 19 Oct. 1/2 The Archbishop of Canterbury is the best double-talker since the Delphic oracle shut up shop. 1958D. Ewen Compl. Bk. Amer. Mus. Theater 230 ‘Melody in Four F.’, a tongue-twister relating in double talk the adventures of being conscripted into the army. 1959Listener 4 June 969/2 This has meant..a certain amount of double-talk, many carefully imprecise statements of intention. 1960Guardian 23 Dec. 5/3 Britain's confused and double-talking attitude to the Cyprus question. 1961New Left Rev. Mar.–Apr. (front cover), The Labour Party has double-talked its way around the issue. 1968Globe & Mail (Toronto) 13 Jan. B5/1 Spiralling costs..have inflated the price of B.C. Hydro and Power Authority's Columbia and Peace River power and flood control dams—just how much nobody is certain and Mr. Bennett has persistently doubletalked on this subject. |