核心畫面

Picture two long needles pulling one thread into loop after loop, so that a flat piece of cloth slowly grows out of a single line of wool. Look at the hands and you are thinking of the activity; look at what hangs from the needles and you are thinking of the piece; look up at a web of crossing lines and you get the railway joke.

knitting 可以想成兩根長針把一條毛線拉成一圈又一圈,讓一片布從一條線慢慢長出來。眼睛看著那雙手,你講的就是「更多收起knitting 可以想成兩根長針把一條毛線拉成一圈又一圈,讓一片布從一條線慢慢長出來。眼睛看著那雙手,你講的就是「織這件事」。眼睛看著針上垂下來的那塊,你講的就是「手上那件半成品」。如果抬頭看到一整片交錯拉開的線,那就是鐵道圈借走這個畫面時的用法。

From the word’s history

Wiktionary gives knitting as Middle English knyttynge, equivalent to knit + -ing. The -ing ending is what lets one word name both the doing and the thing that comes out of the doing.

本批資料的 Wiktionary 條目把 knitting 記為中古英語 knyttynge,也就是 knit 加上 -ing。-ing 這個字尾正好是關鍵:它讓同一個字既能指「做這件事」,也能指「做出來的那個東西」。

Wiktionary entry 'knitting' (noun), etymology_text supplied in this packet: 'From Middle English knyttynge; equivalent to knit + -ing.' (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:829858277)

Two branches

手上的毛線活

這一組就是核心畫面本身,只差鏡頭放在哪裡:放在動作上是活動,放在針上垂下來的那塊布上就是成品。

noun · A2

The activity of making clothes, blankets or other things out of wool or yarn, using two long needles or a machine.

編織(這件事)

鐵道圈的行話:頭頂上的線網

這是同一個畫面被抬頭看的結果。軌道上方的電線交錯成一片網,看起來就像織出來的東西,於是鐵道圈把它叫成 the knitting。這是一個借畫面的玩笑說法,不是另一條歷史來源。

noun · C1

The overhead electric wires that hang above a railway line and carry power to the trains — a name used among railway workers and train fans, mainly in the UK.

電車線(鐵道圈說法)

原始詞典資料4 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。

knittingnoun/ˈnɪtɪŋ/

  • 1

    The action of the verb to knit; the process of producing knitted material.

    • I find knitting very relaxing.
  • 2

    Material that has been, or is being knitted.

    • She put down her knitting and went to answer the phone.
    • At Kiwi, 40 miles from Nelson [New Zealand], eight women installed themselves in the goods shed, taking with them their knitting, and a supply of food and magazines. The demolition crew was unable to pull the building down without injuring them.
  • 3

    informalrail-transportrailwaystransportoverhead electrification wires, OHLE

    • Fair point. Instead of tearing down the knitting and using diesel, tear down the knitting and use turbines.
    • It also helps, if: [...] the knitting is aligned with the track below, or rather vice versa, something else that went after 1996.

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 WiktionaryCC BY-SA 4.0)。 原文照列,未經改寫。