流汗硬啃：動作與那份苦功
這一組最貼近「流汗」的原始畫面：一個是正在流汗的動作，一個是流完汗留下的那堆功夫。
verb · C1
To study very hard over a short time, usually because a test or an exam is coming. You swot for an exam, and you swot up on a subject you need to know.
惡補；猛 K 書
核心畫面
You can picture swot as someone bent over a book with the exam only days away, working until their shirt sticks to their back. The old root behind the word is sweat, and that is the whole feeling: not quick cleverness, but effort you can see. From that one picture come three things — the act of grinding away at the books, the grind itself thought of as a lump of work, and the person everybody points at for doing it too much.
swot 的核心畫面可以想成：考試只剩幾天，一個人趴在書上硬啃，啃到出汗。這個字的老根就是「汗」，所以它從頭到尾講的…更多收起
swot 的核心畫面可以想成：考試只剩幾天，一個人趴在書上硬啃，啃到出汗。這個字的老根就是「汗」，所以它從頭到尾講的都不是聰明，而是看得見的力氣。從這個畫面長出三樣東西：那個拚命念的動作、那份苦功本身，還有被大家指指點點、念得太多的那個人。From the word’s history
Wiktionary records swot as a dialectal English word, from Middle English swot, swat, from Old English swāt (perspiration; sweat), from Proto-Germanic *swaitą. The modern meanings all sit on that sweat picture.
Wiktionary 記載 swot 來自英國方言，往上是中古英文的 swot、swat，再往上是古英文的 swāt（汗），最早到原始日耳曼語的 *swaitą。今天的各種意思，都還踩在「流汗」這個畫面上。
Wiktionary entry for swot (packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:930674990)
Two branches
被貼上標籤的那個人
動作做過頭，旁人就把它變成一個人的身分標籤——這一步同時把中性的辛苦變成了帶刺的評語。
noun · C1
Someone who spends far too much of their time studying and seems to have no other interests. The word is unkind: the person using it thinks all that studying is dull or a bit sad.
書呆子
原始詞典資料5 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。
swotverb/swɒt/
- 1
informalTo study with effort or determination.
- Are you going to swot at it all the evening?
swotnoun/swɒt/
- 1
slanginformalOne who swots; a boffin, nerd, or smart aleck.
- He liked Tom all right... Sampson and Bullock he could do without, however. Especially Sampson, who was too much of a grammar-school-type swot ever to be quite the thing.
- The popular science bit goes like this. Your brain has two hemispheres, left and right. The left is the organised swot who likes bright light, keeps his bedroom tidy and can tolerate sums. Your right hemisphere is your brain on drugs: the long-haired, creative type you don't bring home to mother.
- 2
slanginformalWork.
- All I want is — guerre fini, soldat fini; and to go home without burden of any thought save music, and hard swot for a time.
- 3
slanginformalVigorous study at an educational institution.
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。