喜樂美語

核心畫面

Picture a force that is already running — a fire pulling air up a pipe. You reach over and slide a small metal plate part of the way across. Less air gets through, and the fire settles down. Nothing was put out and nothing was stopped. Something was simply held back. A damper is the thing that does that holding back, and the word is built that way: damp means to reduce or deaden, and -er names the thing that does it. A pad on a piano string, a cylinder under a bus seat, a steel ball in a tower — and, with no metal at all, a piece of bad news on a party.

可以先想一個畫面：火正旺，空氣沿著管子往上衝。你伸手把一片小鐵板推過去一半。進去的空氣少了，火就慢慢弱下來。沒有把火…更多收起可以先想一個畫面：火正旺，空氣沿著管子往上衝。你伸手把一片小鐵板推過去一半。進去的空氣少了，火就慢慢弱下來。沒有把火弄熄，也沒有把它停掉。只是被壓住了一點。damper 就是負責做這件事的東西，這個字本身也是這樣造出來的：damp 是「把某樣東西壓小、壓弱」，加上 -er 就成了「壓小它的那個東西」。壓在鋼琴弦上的軟墊、車椅下面的避震筒、大樓裡的鋼球，都是同一個動作；而當被壓下去的不是火也不是震動，而是一場派對的氣氛時，這個字連金屬都不需要了。

From the word’s history

Wiktionary derives the noun from the verb damp plus the agent ending -er, and dates the bread sense to 1825, suggesting it originally referred to damping the appetite.

依據 Wiktionary，這個名詞來自動詞 damp 加上表示「做這件事的人或物」的 -er，字面就是「負責壓小它的那個東西」。同一份資料把麵包那個意思的最早記錄訂在 1825 年，並推測它原本指的是「壓下食慾」。後面這一點來源本身就寫成推測，不是定論。

Wiktionary (kaikki extract) entry for damper, etymology 1; source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:288579793:25275

Three branches

把火或把震動壓小的裝置

這一族就是核心畫面本身：一個實體零件裝在那裡，專門把某股力量壓小。被壓的可以是空氣、震動或聲音。

noun · C1

A metal plate or small door inside a stove, a fireplace or an air pipe, which you open or close to control how much air reaches the fire, so that it burns harder or dies down.

（爐子的）風門；擋板

把氣氛壓下去（固定說法）

同一片板子，只是這次不壓空氣也不壓震動，而是壓一場活動或一種好心情；這個意思只活在 put a damper on something 這個說法裡。

noun · B2

To make an event, a plan, or a good feeling less lively, less enjoyable, or less successful than it was going to be.

掃興；潑冷水

澳紐的營火無酵餅

這一族不必硬接回上面的畫面：來源把它當成另一條線索記錄，只是推測它原本指的是「壓下食慾」。

noun · C1

A plain bread made from flour, water or milk, and salt, with no yeast in it, often cooked in the hot ashes of an open fire. It is a traditional food in Australia and New Zealand.

（澳紐）無酵烤餅

原始詞典資料8 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。

dampernoun詞源 1/ˈdæmpɚ/

  • 1

    Something that damps or checks:

  • 2

    Something that damps or checks:

  • 3

    Something that damps or checks:

    • Nor did Sabrina′s presence seem to act as any damper at the modest little festivities.
  • 4

    Something that damps or checks:

    • Figure 7.13 shows stability diagrams that illustrate the effect of the magnitude of the damping coefficient of the damper on the flutter of the pipe.
  • 5

    engineeringmechanicalmechanical-engineeringSomething that damps or checks:

    • In general, steel springs were stipulated for primary suspension, although rubber was accepted for auxiliary springing; hydraulic dampers were specified and the use of laminated springs ruled out.
    • However, complaints quickly surfaced about the ride quality of the SIG BT41 bogies, which was only cured by the fitting of additional dampers to the bogies and couplers.
  • 6

    Bread made from a basic recipe of flour, water, milk, and salt, but without yeast.

    • 1827, Peter Cunningham, Two Years in New South Wales, ii.190, quoted in G. A. Wilkes, A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms, 1978, →ISBN, The farm-men usually bake their flour into flat cakes, which they call dampers, and cook these in the ashes.
    • The flour bespattering Squeaker's now neglected clothes spoke eloquently of his clumsy efforts at damper making.
  • 7

    obsoleteslangA shop till.

    • A certain class of 'City Arabs' do nothing but steal provisions from shop doors and sell them for one-tenth of their value, or less, […] while a fourth again do nothing but "draw the dampers," i. e. steal from shop-tills.

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。