喜樂美語

核心畫面

You can hear the verb call still sitting inside this noun: someone is calling your name, and the work is on the other end of that voice. That is why a calling feels less like a choice and more like an answer. Hold that picture, and the second, plainer use makes sense too — if the work called you and you went, then after thirty years it is simply the line you are in.

可以想成動詞 call 還留在這個名詞裡：有個聲音在叫你的名字，工作就在那個聲音的另一頭。所以 calling 聽起…更多收起可以想成動詞 call 還留在這個名詞裡：有個聲音在叫你的名字，工作就在那個聲音的另一頭。所以 calling 聽起來不太像「選擇」，比較像「回應」。抓住這個畫面，另一個比較平淡的用法也就通了——既然那份工作叫過你，你也去了，做了三十年之後，它自然就成了「你這一行」。

From the word’s history

Wiktionary records the noun as Middle English calling, callynge, formed from the verb call plus -ing, so the noun is literally 'a calling out' — the sense of being summoned to work is the oldest thread in the word.

Wiktionary 記載這個名詞來自中古英語 calling／callynge，由 call 加 -ing 構成。字面上就是「叫喚」，所以「被召去做某件工作」這層意思，是這個字裡最早的那條線。

Wiktionary entry for calling, etymology 2 (kaikki extract, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:784215571): "From Middle English calling, callynge, equivalent to call + -ing."

One branch

被叫去做的那件事

兩個意思都從「有個聲音叫你去做某件工作」長出來。差別在於一個保留了那股非做不可的力量，一個只剩下「這是他在做的那一行」。

noun · B2

A strong feeling that a particular kind of work is what you are meant to do, so you follow it because it feels right rather than because of the money — often used about religious work, and also about teaching, nursing and other work that helps people.

使命

原始詞典資料3 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

callingnoun詞源 2/ˈkɔːlɪŋ/

  • 1

    A strong urge (to do some particular thing with or in one's life, for example to become religious, to help the poor, or to be an entertainer).

  • 2

    A job or occupation.

    • Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.

這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：

資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。