The verb “decapitate” combines the Latin words de (off) and caput (head). It means “to cut the head off,” and came into English in the 1610s, by way of the 14th century French word decapiter. The noun form is “decapitation.”
The word “capitation” also exists, although it doesn’t mean to place the head back on the body once it has been removed. It means “the counting of heads” for the purposes of levying a tax, and dates back to the 1610s.
In the early 15th century, the root caput came to be associated with the main, principal, chief or dominant item of its kind. It wasn’t until the 1660s, however, that the word “capital” was first recorded to refer to the main city of a country, being the official seat of government.
Photo: AP 照片：美聯社
The upper case first letter of a sentence came to be called the capital letter — appearing as it does at the “head” of the sentence — in around the 14th century.
The Latin capitulum (chapter) leads to the idea of “to draw up in heads or chapters” and therefore that of arranging terms and conditions in an agreement. In the 1640s this was narrowed down to arranging terms of surrender, giving us the modern verb “to capitulate,” meaning to surrender having negotiated terms, or by extension, to “cease resisting.”
(Paul Cooper, Taipei Times)
動詞「decapitate」結合了拉丁字「de」（脫離、切斷、掉落）和「caput」（頭部），是斷頭的意思。該字源自於十四世紀的法文字「decapiter」，約在一六一○年代進入英語系統，名詞是「decapitation」。
在英語中也有「capitation」這個字，不過並不是把砍斷的頭再接回身體的意思，而是徵稅時按人頭計算之意，該字亦可回朔自一六一○年代。
在十五世紀初，「caput」這個字根開始和主要的、首要的、為首的、支配的這類之概念產生關聯。然而，直到一六六○年代，才有關於「capital」這個字首次用來代表一國首都的記錄，也就是政府的正式所在地。
而句子的第一個字母要大寫，自十四世紀左右起也叫「capital letter」（大寫字母）——顯然是因為它是一個句子的「開頭」。
拉丁字「capitulum」（章節）則引申為起草契約標題或章節、安排協議條款及條件。而到了一六四○年代，其字義便限縮為安排投降條款，因此而有了「capitulate」一字的現代字義︰依協商好的條件投降，並另外衍生出停止反抗的意思。
（台北時報張聖恩譯）
Renhe sat stiffly at the Wei Ya banquet, picking at the symbolic dishes on the table. Fish for abundance, sticky rice cake for progress — it all seemed superstitious to him. The shrine to the Land God near the entrance, adorned with offerings, incense, and fruit, struck him as frivolous. “What does this have to do with running a business?” Renhe scrolled on his phone as his co-workers performed skits and poorly sung songs. He wasn’t even paying attention to the lucky draws when his name was called. The room filled with applause and cheers as he went to the stage
The cocoa industry is currently facing a crisis, with this year’s cocoa trading price soaring to an unprecedented $10,000 per ton—a 400 percent increase from last year—stemming from diminished crop yields. Given cocoa’s indispensable role in chocolate-making, this surge has driven up chocolate prices and triggered concerns about the sustainability of global chocolate production. West Africa, home to over half of the world’s cocoa trees, is at the center of this issue. The Republic of Cote d’Ivoire and the Republic of Ghana, in particular, are facing severe challenges from both natural disasters and human-induced factors, substantially impacting cocoa harvests. Climate change, with
「雙手合十／合掌禮」(namaste) or 「碰肘／擊肘」 (elbow bump): 新冠肺炎流行逐漸改變現代社會的某些社交禮儀，歐美許多名人政要開始以「雙手合十／合掌禮」(namaste) 或「碰肘／擊肘」(elbow bump) 替代握手。 《今日商業》報導英國王儲查爾斯以「雙手合十」代替握手。 Coronavirus update: Prince Charles spotted greeting people with namaste (Business Today , March 12, 2020) 另外，《商業內幕》報導：疫情期間美國總統川普在白宮舉行新冠肺炎記者會，想和居家照護公司LHC集團執行副總葛林斯坦 (Bruce Greenstein) 握手，葛林斯坦婉拒，示意改用擊肘。 President Donald Trump attempted to shake hands with a home health care company executive . . . but the man turned the president down and offered him an elbow bump instead. (Eliza Relman, Business Insider , March 14, 2020) 「雙手合十／合掌禮」源自印度，也流行於泰、緬等國家。「碰肘／擊肘」則是 2006 禽流感、2009 豬流感後逐漸流行。疫情逐漸改變我們的生活方式，包括打招呼等社交禮儀，也出現了微妙的變化。 「拱手禮」(fist-and-palm salute) 至於華人社會傳統上也有雙手互握合於胸前「拱手禮」(fist-and-palm salute)。公益網站 Just Quarantine 提到： Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen demonstrating social distancing through use of a traditional Chinese greeting (fist & palm) instead of shaking hands in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 因應新冠肺炎疫情，2020 當年總統蔡英文與來訪賓客保持安全距離，拱手 (fist &
Continued from yesterday（延續自昨日） https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang Interestingly, stonefish don’t use their venomous spines to hunt. Instead, the spines serve as a defense mechanism. When hunting, stonefish catch their prey by hiding among rocks on the seafloor or in coral and remaining incredibly still until small fish or shrimp swim by. They then ambush their prey with lightning speed, swallowing their meal in a second. Despite their quick movements when capturing prey, stonefish are generally slow swimmers. They prefer to stay in shallow waters rather than swim in open areas. They can even survive outside of water for up to 24 hours. So,
RSS