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اولين خدمات ترجمه از طريق نمابر و پست الكترونيك در ايران

گوش كنيد، بخوانيد، لذت ببريد، ياد بگيريد

بر روی آیکون قرمز کلیک کنید تا گوینده متن را برایتان بخواند. سعی کنید لغات دشوار را نیز یاد بگیرید.
نکته! کلیه کلمات به فرهنگ لغت نیز متصل هستند و چنانچه بر روی هر لغت دوبار کلیک کنید معنای آن را خواهید دید.

Fish or cut bait

We've been angling for a reason to tell the tale of a certain phrase, and today—on the anniversary of the birth, in 1593, of Izaak Walton—is the right time to fish or cut bait.

In case you haven't caught on yet, we're looking at the phrase fish or cut bait on the birthday of the fellow who wrote The Compleat Angler. Walton first published his treatise on fishing in 1653, when he was 60, but he continued revising it for another two decades.

In that much-loved book, he promised readers "angling will prove to be . . . like virtue, a reward to itself" and went on to liken "angling to . . . the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it."

But while Walton reminded his fellow philosopher-fishermen "No man can lose what he never had," he is not credited with the first print appearance of the phrase fish or cut bait. That metaphor with the general sense "to make a choice between alternatives: cease temporizing or procrastinating," and the more specific application, "to choose either to engage wholeheartedly or actively in some work or scheme or to withdraw from it completely," has its origin in the fisherman's choice to fish—that is, "to do the work of catching fish"—or to cut bait, that is, "chop chum to be thrown overboard and attract other fish."

Provided by Tarjomeh.com from Merriam-Webster.

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