原作者：
来源ellipse – podictionary 187
译者jee@小小新
An ellipse is asort of a squashed circle, or an elongated circle, depending on how you look atit.
椭圆就是一个被压扁的圆，或者一个被拉长的圆，这取决于你怎么看它。
Another name foran ellipse is an oval. The word “oval” comes to us because it means “egglike” which describes an oval’s shape.
椭圆的另一个名字叫“卵形的”。我们用“oval”这个词是因为可以用“像卵形的”来描述那些椭圆状的东西。
But ellipse comesfrom a Greek word that means “to come short” as in “close, but not quitethere.” This doesn’t refer to the ellipse as being close to a circle, butinstead refers to how mathematicians think of geometric shapes like circles andellipses.
不过希腊语里ellipse的意思“达不到，不及”，亦即“接近，但不全是那样”，它的意思并不是说椭圆的形状接近圆形，相反是数学家们认为的那种类似于圆或者椭圆的几何形状。
A whole group ofthese shapes are called by mathematicians “conic sections” because if you imaginea cone—the shape of a dunce cap or one of those orange traffic cones—beingsliced by a laser beam, you get these kind of geometric shapes.
整个这一类几何形状就是数学家所说的“圆锥”，你可以想象一个球果的样子—一个笨瓜头上戴的尖尖的高帽，或者那些用激光柱切割成的橙色交通锥，这样你就会明白这类几何形状到底是什么样子。
For instanceslicing it off straight across the bottom gives you a circle. Cutting thecone at various angles gives you various shapes of ellipse. Until theangle of your cut exceeds the angle of the side of the cone.
比如吧，假设你从底部直直的切开一个圆锥，便得到一个圆。如果你从侧面不同角度切割圆锥，便会有不同样子的椭圆，除非，直到你的切割角度超过圆锥体侧边的角度。
After that theellipse isn’t an ellipse anymore because it is open at one end. It hasbecome a hyperbola. So as long as the angle of the cut comes shortof the angle of the cone’s side it is an ellipse. To come short, ellipse.
这样完毕之后，椭圆也不再成椭圆了，因为它的末端已开口。现在它就成了双曲线。所以，只要你切割的角度达不到圆锥侧边的角度，它依然是椭圆。记住了，达不到，它就是椭圆。
Now I really chosethis word as an excuse to introduce another guy from the history ofetymology. One of the citations in the OED entry for ellipse is from a fellownamed Liddell.
现在，我就是想找个理由，选这个词，从词源学的历史上来介绍一位伙计。在牛津英语词典(OED)里，这个词的一条引用是出自一个叫里德尔的家伙。
Back in the firsthalf of the 1800s this guy Henry George Liddell picked up a pet project with afriend of his, Robert Scott. Students of Greek have been praising andcursing these two ever since. In 1843 they published a honking great bigtome that represented everything they knew about how ancient Greek had beenused. They called it their Greek Lexicon and Amazon lists its shipping weight at 8.3pounds. This is why students have cursed it.
追溯回19世纪前半页吧，这位名叫亨利·乔治·里德尔的伙子和他的朋友罗伯特斯考特搞了一个足以让他俩引以为豪的工程。从此，希腊学生对这两位毁誉参半。1843年，这二位自鸣得意地出了一本大书。该书代表了他们所知道有关古希腊人使用的一切东东。他俩称这个宝贝叫“希腊辞典”，这玩意儿在亚马逊网站上列出它的装订重量达8.3磅。这就是学生们诅咒的原因所在。
I almost died whenone day my very pregnant professor lugged a copy into class to let me have alook at it.
那天，我差点有想死的幻觉，我那位怀孕的女教授竟然拖着一本这样的东东到教室里，让我们一睹它的芳容。
Of course theypraise it because it is one of those works that is just about as complete ascan be. For 150 bucks you can have the latest version which is the ninthedition, but the bulk of it was set out 160 years ago by Liddell and Scott.
这二位仁兄理所当然受到赞誉，理由是他们的工作几乎详尽备至，现在你只需花150美元就可以获得这本辞典的最新第十九版，不过书的大小却和160年前里德尔和斯考特两位伙计印刷时一样大。
No one seems tohave had a bad word to say about old Henry George Liddell. He achievedvery prominent positions at Oxford, vice-chancellor of the university and deanof one of the colleges. Reading the forward to the Lexicon you can alsosee that he had a sense of humor.
似乎没有任何一个人说过老亨利·乔治·里德尔一句坏话。他在牛津的地位举足轻重，当过牛津大学副校长，还担任某个学院的系主任。读完词典的前言，你会发现他是个富有幽默感的家伙。
He must have had,because he also had ten kids—I suppose that means his wife Lorina had to havehad a sense of humor as well.
他想必有10个孩子，嗯，那简直是一定的。我猜想他妻子或许和他一样富于幽默吧。
Anyway, one oftheir daughters, little Alice became a favorite of another Oxford professor, aguy named Charles Dodgson, who was inspired to write Alice’s Adventures inWonderland; but he used the pen name Lewis Caroll.
好了，不管怎么说，夫妇俩的一个女儿，小爱丽丝也成了牛津大学著名教授，一位名叫查尔斯·道其森的小伙，受此启发，写下了《爱丽丝奇幻记》，可他用的笔名却是刘易斯·卡洛尔
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