“Fast Food Athletes Say Yes To” (運動員也會對它「說好」的速食) 🌮

 

我最近走過一家墨西哥速食店，看到店門外的一張廣告海報，上面寫着一句標語： Fast Food Athletes Say Yes To 運動員也會對它「說好」的速食 我第一眼看時有點困惑，需要再讀一次才能完全理解。 我第一次困惑的原因是，我的腦子把 “fast food athletes” 當作一個名詞組來理解了。 這就出現了第一個疑問——甚麼是 “fast food athlete”（速食運動員）？ 接着，因為我把這個令人費解的名詞組 “fast food athletes” 當成了子句的主語，我就把 “say” 理解成了它的限定動詞。 所以，我第一次（只是一瞬間）讀到的意思是： “Fast food athletes” say yes to…      (??) 「速食運動員」會對⋯⋯說好             (??) 這個子句顯然完全沒有意思，所以我立刻重新讀了一遍： Fast Food Athletes Say Yes To ↓ Fast Food [ (that) Athletes Say Yes To ] 運動員也會對它「說好」的速食 第二次讀時，我才意識到這是一個帶有關係子句的名詞組，關係子句 [ that athletes say yes to ] 充當形容詞修飾名詞 “fast food”。 在這個關係子句裡，關係代名詞 “that” 代表被修飾的名詞組（即 “fast food”），並且是介詞 “to” 後的名詞，組成介詞組 “to that”。 如果我們把這個關係子句改寫成普通子句，就會很清楚： Athletes say yes to THAT (= this fast food). 由於這個關係代名詞 “that” 在關係子句中並不是主語，所以在結構中可以省略——原句就是省略了它，變成： Fast Food [ Athletes Say Yes To ] 運動員也會對它「說好」的速食 這樣的「名詞＋關係子句」結構在文法上完全正確，但一開始卻誤導我以為這是子句， “fast food athletes” 是主語，而 “say” 是限定動詞。 如果想避免這種誤讀，讓標語結構更容易讀懂，其實只要把關係代名詞 “that” 加回去就行了——這樣就不可能把它理解成別的結構： Fast Food That Athletes Say Yes To 運動員也會對它「說好」的速食 重點是，有時候，即使詞組或子句在文法上完全正確，也可能因為不同原因讓讀者難以理解。 當我們意識到這一點時，可以採取一些文法策略，例如把省略了的文法標記字重新補回等，讓結構更清楚。

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“Fast Food Athletes Say Yes To” 🌮 I walked past a Mexican fast food restaurant recently, and one of the advertising posters outside the shopfront had this tagline on in: Fast Food Athletes Say Yes To 運動員也會對它「說好」的速食 I was a bit confused when I first read it and had to read it again to understand it properly.  The reason I was confused on the first reading was that my brain had interpreted “fast food athletes” as one noun phrase. This was the first of confusion -- what kind of “athlete” is a “fast food athlete”? Then, taking this confusing noun phrase “fast food athletes” as the “subject” of this clause, I interpreted the verb “say” as its finite verb. So, on my first (split-second) reading, what I got out of the sentence was: “Fast food athletes” say yes to…             (??) 「速食運動員」會對⋯⋯說好                  (??)  This clause clearly made no sense, so I immediately reread the line: Fast Food Athletes Say Yes To ↓ Fast Food [ (that) Athletes Say Yes To ]  運動員也會對它「說好」的   速食 What I realized on the second reading was that this is a noun phrase with the relative clause [ that athletes say yes to ] acting as an adjective to the noun “fast food.” In the relative clause, the relative pronoun “that” (representing the noun phrase being modified, that is, “fast food”) is the noun after the preposition “to,” forming a prepositional phrase with “to.” We can see this clearly if we rewrite the relative clause as a normal clause:  Athletes say yes to THAT (=this fast food) Because this relative pronoun “that” is not playing the role of the subject inside the relative clause, we can omit it -- and that is what the original line did, leaving:  Fast Food [ Athletes Say Yes To ]  運動員也會對它「說好」的   速食 This noun phrase with a relative clause is structurally completely correct, but it misled me at first to think that “fast food athletes” is the subject, and “say” is the finite verb. If we want to avoid this type of misinterpretation and make the tagline clearer to read, we can simply add back the relative pronoun “that” -- with the relative pronoun in place, there would be no way to read this any other way other than as a noun phrase with a relative clause: Fast Food That Athletes Say Yes To  運動員也會對它「說好」的   速食 The point is that, sometimes, even when the structure of a phrase or clause is grammatically correct, it might be hard to interpret because of different reasons. When we realize this, we can use different strategies, like adding back certain grammatical marker words when they have been omitted etc., to make the structure clearer.

Best,  Ms. Charlotte