第1399期：小时候玩的打水漂游戏，英文说法更好玩。

小时候玩过打水漂吧？把一块扁平的小石头贴着水面扔出去，看谁的石头在水面上“弹跳”次数多。

这个游戏美国英语叫stone skipping，英国英语叫stone skimming.

Wikipedia上的解释特别好，非常精准：

both refer to the art of throwing a flat stone across the water in such a way (usually sidearm) that it bounces off the surface.

The objective of “skipping” is to see how many times a stone can bounce before it sinks into the water; 

the objective of “skimming” is to see how far a bouncing stone can travel across the water before it sinks into the water.

以前我还真没想过这么多，也忘了在玩的时候大家比的到底是谁的石头跑得远还是在水面上的弹跳次数多。总之，小时候跟小伙伴们在外面瞎玩，每个小孩都穷的叮当响，也没什么像样的玩具，但怎么那么开心? 大概这就是穷开心吧。

打水漂除了上面这两种说法，英文里还有一个更好玩的说法：ducks and drakes 母鸭子和公鸭子。

Duck是鸭子的统称，或者特指母鸭子；drake是公鸭子。小鸭子是duckling.

在句子中怎么用呢？

如果你要说玩打水漂这个游戏，就可以说make ducks and drakes.

为什么这样说？出处不详，大概是古代英国人玩这个游戏时觉得石头激起的水花像鸭子在水面扑腾一样吧。

还有一个轻微的变体说法：play ducks and drakes，意思一样。

中文里“打水漂”常引申为白费了，英文中稍有不同，一般引申为浪费、挥霍。

例句：

The government has no right to play ducks and drakes with the taxpayers’ money.

ZF无权挥霍纳税 人的钱。

小结今天的内容：

打水漂这个游戏的英文是stone skipping, 或stone skimming.

Make ducks and drakes (of); play ducks and drakes (with)意思一样，动词和介词不同，都是固定搭配，不能混用。

注意：母鸭子、公鸭子都是复数形式哦。

Reference

The Guinness World Record for the furthest distance skimmed using natural stone stands at 121.8m for men, established by Dougie Isaacs (Scotland), and 52.5m for women, thrown by Nina Luginbuhl (Switzerland). These records were made on the 28th of May 2018 at Abernant Lake, Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys, Wales. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_skipping