核心畫面

Picture the person who arrives when the machine stops working. They are not the one with the big idea and not the one giving orders — they are the one who opens the panel, checks each part in order, and knows from doing it a hundred times exactly which screw to turn. The know-how lives in their hands and in the procedure they follow, not in a speech. That figure — someone whose value is a trained, practical technique rather than a title — can be held as the picture inside 'technician'.

可以想成機器停了以後走進來的那個人。他不是想點子的人,也不是下指令的人,而是打開面板、照順序一格一格檢查、做過一百次更多收起可以想成機器停了以後走進來的那個人。他不是想點子的人,也不是下指令的人,而是打開面板、照順序一格一格檢查、做過一百次所以知道該轉哪一顆螺絲的那位。他的本事長在手上、長在那套流程裡,不在嘴上。technician 的畫面比較像這樣一個人:撐住他的是練出來的實作技術,不是頭銜。也因為重點在「技術」,這個字後來也用得到球場和音樂廳裡。

From the word’s history

Technician (1833) is 'technic' + '-ian', and 'technic' (1610s) comes from Latin 'technicus' and Greek 'tekhnikos' = 'of or pertaining to art, made by art', from Greek 'tekhne' = 'art, skill, craft'. The now-common sense 'person skilled in practical or mechanical arts' is recorded by 1939.

字根來自希臘文 tekhne,意思是「技藝、手藝、做東西的本事」——technique、technical、technology 都是同一家人。所以 technician 從頭到尾指的是「有那門手藝的人」,機器只是後來最常見的場合而已(這個「修機器的人」的用法到 1939 年才被記錄下來)。先抓住「手藝」這一層,就會覺得說一個球員是 a fine technician 一點也不奇怪。

Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com), entries 'technician' and 'technic'

原始詞典資料1 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。

techniciannoun/tɛkˈnɪʃən/

  • 1

    A person who studies or practises technology; an expert in a particular technology.

    • The lift technician found the reason the lift wasn't working.

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