English, like all languages, is a messy business.
英语，像所有语言一样，并不总是那么规规矩矩。
You can be uncouth but not couth.
你可以“粗俗”（uncouth），但却不能“文雅”（没有couth这个词）。
You can be ruthless, but good luck trying to show somebody
你可以“无情”（ruthless），但除非你和一个叫Ruth的女孩结婚，
that you have ruth unless you happen to be married to someone named Ruth.
否则不可能告诉别人你有“情”（英语里没有ruth这个词）。
It's bad to be unkempt but impossible to be kempt, or sheveled as opposed to disheveled.
“不整洁”（unkempt）是件很糟糕的事，但“整洁”（kempt）是绝对不可能的。同样，不存在“整齐”（sheveled），但我们有“凌乱”（disheveled）。
There are other things that make no more sense than those
还有其他情况，比刚才所说的更加没有道理，
but that seem normal now because the sands of time have buried where they came from.
但现在看来却已经很稀松平常，因为经过时间的推移，人们已经不记得这些说法最初的来源了。
For example, did you ever wonder why a nickname for Edward is Ned? Where'd the N come from?
举例来说，你是否想过为什么“爱德华”（Edward）的昵称是“奈德”（Ned）？这个“N”从什么地方来的？
It's the same with Nellie for Ellen.
“艾伦”（Ellen）的昵称“奈丽”（Nellie）也面临同样的问题。
Afterall, if someone's name is Ethan, we don't nickname him Nethan, nor do we call our favorite Maria, Nmaria.
毕竟，如果某人叫“伊桑”（Ethan），那么我们不叫他“尼桑”（Nethan），同样我们不叫“玛丽亚”（Maria）为“娜玛丽亚”（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.
事实上，如果有人这么叫了，那么，我们的第一反应要不就是去训斥他们，要不温柔一点，把这样叫的人藏起来，直到对方都离开。
All these nicknames trace back to a mistake, although, a perfectly understandable one.
所有这些昵称都来源于一个错误，尽管，这个错误完全可以理解。
In fact, even the word nickname is weird.
事实上，甚至“昵称”（nickname）这个词都很奇怪。
What's so "nick" about a nickname?
“昵称”（nickname）这个词的什么部分很“尼克”（nick）吗？
Is it that it's a name that has a nick in it? Let's face it, not likely.
是不是这个名字上面有一个“缺口”（nick）？好像不是这样子的。
Actually, in Old English, the word was ekename, and eke meant also or other.
事实上，在古代英语中，这个词是“ekename”，“eke”的意思是“也”或“另一个”。
You can see eke still used in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in a sentence like,
你可以看到“eke”如下的用法，在乔叟的《坎特伯雷故事集》有这么一句话，
"Whan Zephyrus eek with his sweete breeth," which meant, "When Zephyr also with his sweet breath."
“When Zephyrus eke with his sweete breeth,”意思是，“When Zephyr also with his sweet breath.”（当Zephyr“同样”带着甜蜜的气息）
Ekename meant "also name." What happened was that when people said, "an ekename,"
“Ekename”的意思是“另一个名字”。当人们说“一个另一个名字”（an ekename），
it could sound like they were saying, "a nekename,"
听起来好像在说“一个昵称”
and after a while, so many people were hearing it that way that they started saying,
过了一段时间以后，太多的人都听到了这种发音，以至于大家都开始说，
"That's my nickname," instead of, "That's my ekename."
那是我的“昵称”（nickname）；而不是，那是我的“爱称”（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.
这个有一个奇怪的“n”在前头的单词起源于一个错误，但是现在已经是既定事实了。

It was rather as if you had gum on the bottom of your shoe and stepped on a leaf,
就像，你在鞋底粘了一个口香糖，踏上了一片叶子，
dragged that leaf along for the rest of your life,
这片叶子粘在你的鞋底，陪伴了你的一生，
were buried wearing that shoe and went to heaven in it to spend eternity wedded to that stray, worn-out leaf.
死后穿着这双鞋埋葬于地下，一起去了天堂。然后这片古怪陈旧的叶子陪着你直到永恒。
Ekename picked up an n and never let it go.
“爱称”（ekename）就这样连上了开头的那个“n”，并永远留存。
The same thing happened with other words. Old English speakers cut otches into wood.
同样的事情也发生在其他单词上面。古代英语说在木头上刻“刻痕”。
But after centuries of being asked to cut an otch into something,
但是几百年来人们说在一样东西上刻“一个刻痕”（an otch），
it was easy to think you were cutting a notch instead, and pretty soon you were.
很容易被听成刻“一个裂痕”（a notch），然后大家就都这么说notch了。
In a world where almost no one could read,
在一个大家几乎都不识字的年代，
it was easier for what people heard to become, after a while, what it started to actually be.
大家听到的（而不是写下来的文字）更容易在一段时间后代替原来的词变成真正的说法。
Here's where the Ned-style nicknames come in.
这就是“奈德”样式昵称的起源。
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.
比起现代英语，古代英语更像德语，正如在德语中“我的”叫mein，在古英语中，“我的”是meen。
You would say meen book, actually boke in Old English, or meen cat.
你会说“我的书”（meen book），事实上古英语里“书”是boke或者“我的猫”（meen cat）。
And just as today, we might refer to our child as my Dahlia or my Laura, in Old English, they would say, "Meen Ed".
就如现代一样，我们称我们的孩子为我的达利亚（my Dahlia）或者我的劳拉（my Laura），在古英语中，他们说“我的艾德”（Meen Ed）。
That is mein Ed, mein Ellie. You see where this is going.
意思是“我的艾德”（德语mein Ed），以及“我的艾丽”（mein Ellie）。你猜到会发生什么了吧。
As time passed, meen morphed into the my we know today.
随着时间流逝，“我的”（meen）变成了我们今天所知道的单词，my。
That meant that when people said, "Mein Ed," it sounded like they were saying my Ned.
这意味着当人们说“我的艾德”（Mein Ed）的时候，听起来好像在说“我的奈德”（my Ned）
That is, it sounded like whenever someone referred to Edward affectionately, they said Ned instead of Ed.
那就是，听起来就像每当人们亲昵的提到爱德华（Edward）时，他们在用“奈德”（Ned）来代替“艾德”（Ed）的发音。
Behold, the birth of a nickname! Or an ekename.
知道了吧，“一个昵称”（a nickname），或者，“一个爱称”（an ekename）就这么诞生了！
Hence, also Nellie for Ellen and Nan for Ann, and even in the old days, Nabby for Abigal.
同样，“奈丽”（Nellie）代替了“艾伦”（Ellen），“南”（Nan）代替了“安”（Ann），甚至曾经，“南比”（Nabby）代替了“阿比盖尔”（Abigal）。
President John Adam's wife Abigail's nickname was Nabby.
总统约翰·亚当的妻子阿比盖尔（Abigail），她的昵称就是“南比”（Nabby）。
All sorts of words are like this.
所有这些都是类似的情况。
Old English speakers wore naprons, but a napron sounds like an apron,
古代英语说穿“naprons”（围裙的古代单词），但是“a napron”听起来像“一块围裙”（an apron），
and that gave birth to a word apron that no one in Beowulf would have recognized.
于是产生了一个新词“围裙”（apron），apron这个词在贝奥武夫的年代可并不存在。
Umpire started as numpires, too.
同样，“裁判”（umpire）来源于“numpires”。
If all of this sounds like something sloppy that we modern people would never do,
这些变化听上去似乎都很草率，似乎现代人绝对不会这么做，
then think about something you hear all the time and probably say, "A whole nother."
那么，想想看你一直都听到的、听起来像“A whole nother”。
What's nother? We have the word another, of course, but it's composed of an and other, or so we thought.
什么是“nother”？我们有个词“another”，没错，但是它包含了“一个”（an）和“其他”（other）。我们就是这么想的。
Yet, when we slide whole into the middle, we don't say, "a whole other,"
当我们把“whole”塞到中间，我们不说“a whole other”，
we clip that n off of the an and stick it to other and create a new word, nother.
我们把“n”从“an”上取下来粘到“other”上面，然后创造了一个新词“nother”。
For a long time, nobody was writing these sort of things down or putting them in a dictionary,
有很长一段时间，没人会把这些用法写下来或者放到字典里，
but that's only because writing is more codified now than it was 1,000 years ago.
仅仅是因为1000年前古人做的整理编纂工作比现代人要少的多。
So, when you see a weird word, remember that there might be a whole nother side to the story.
所以，当你看到了一个奇怪的词，请记得，这或许是故事的“一整个另一面”（a whole nother）。