如何“say no”不尴尬

拒绝别人时，如果直接说“no”，似乎有点缺乏人情味，那么，我们要如何委婉得拒绝呢？

1. nah

A non-standard spelling of no, nah is often used when representing southern English pronunciation, particularly cockney speech

非标准拼写，常用作南方发音的代表，特别是伦敦音。

2. No 不

No dates to Old English.

No可以追溯到古英语。

3. uh-uh 啊;哼

The imitative uh-uh is first found in its written form in the 1920s.

书面形式的uh-uh在1920年代首次出现。

4. Nix 拒绝;不行

Originally Victorian slang, nix can be compared withthe earlier German nix, which is a colloquial shortened form of nichts (‘nothing’).

最初是维多利亚时代的俚语，与德语中的nix相近，是nichts(其含义为nothing“没什么”)的口语缩写形式的。

5. nixie / nixy / nixey 不

And it wasn’t long until this slang term was given a –y/-ie suffix, used to form pet names and familiar diminutives.

没多久，这个俚语添加了-y/-ie后缀，用来作宠物姓名和熟人的昵称。

6. nope 不

The earliest sense of nope was actually another name for the bullfinch, used in the early 17th century –but fast forward to the the late 19th century and nope is being used for no, with an apparently arbitrary extension, at around the same time that yep began being used for yes.

实际上，在17世纪早期，Nope最早的含义是红腹灰雀(bullfinch)的别名。但到19世纪末期时，nope被用来表达no的意思(不)，相似地，大约在同一时间，yep开始被用于表达yes(是)的含义。

7. nay 不;拒绝

This form of no is particularly characteristic of Northern English. In origin it is a borrowing from early Scandinavian (cf. Icelandic nei). You could once also nick with nay –that is, ‘answer in the negative’.

Nay的使用是英国北部语言的特征。早期起源于北欧冰岛的nei。你可以用nay来表达否定的含义。

8. no way 决不;一点儿也不

Though decried as slang by some, no way (for ‘no’) has a long history, dating back at least as far as the 18th century.

有人认为这个表达只是俚语表达，但no way有很长的发展历史，可以追溯到18世纪以前。

9. no way, José 拒绝;决不

It’s not entirely clear why José is added to this expression, other than the obvious novelty of the rhyme. Its history (unsurprisingly) is far shorter, with the current earliest known use dating only to 1979.

no way后面添加José的原因还并不清楚，但发音更加舒适。这个用法出现的时间较短，最早的使用是在1979年。

10. negative 否定，拒绝

If you’re feeling in a military frame of mind, you can say negative instead of no (as opposed to affirmative for yes). This probably started as a way of saying ‘no’over the radio with as much clarity as possible.

如果你内心崇尚军事，你可能会说negative而不是no(对应的肯定词为yes)。这可能由于在广播中采用negative来表达否定含义，因为negative比no更清晰。

11. veto 否决;禁止

Veto joins that group of Latin words that are used as everyday parts of English. Literally translating as ‘I forbid’, this is a fairly commanding way to show your disapproval of a scheme.

Veto来源于日常拉丁词汇。按字面翻译为“我禁止……”，这是一个相当强硬的方式表明你反对某个计划。

12. out of the question 不可能

Originally meaning ‘beside the point, not relevant to the matter under discussion. One of the earliest uses of this later sense comes from Eliza Haywood’s The History of Betsy Thoughtless: ‘A marriage with miss Betsy was, therefore, now quite out of the question with him’.

最初的意思是“离题，与正在讨论的问题无关的”。out of the question作为“不可能”最早出自伊丽莎海伍德的作品《贝琪的粗心历史》中:“因此，他和贝特西小姐结婚是不可能的。

13. no siree

You would be right in thinking that siree here is derived from sir —ultimately it is, but it developed as a variant of sirrah (much used in Shakespeare), which (in turn) was formed directly from sir with a (perhaps arbitrary) suffix, as a term used when addressing men or boys with contempt.

Siree源于sir，sir是sirrah的变体，sirrah又sir和后缀(可能是arbitrary)组成，用来表示对男性的轻蔑。

14. for foul nor fair 不可能

Putting opposites together to cover a spectrum is a pretty good way to indicate that something isn’t going to happen: this one can be found as far back as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

将反义词放在一起表达一些不会发生的事是非常好的方式:这个用法最早可以追溯到乔叟的《坎特伯雷故事集》。

15. not on your life 一点也不;绝对不行

This emphasizes your reluctance to comply with a request –that, even if the requester’s life was at stake, you’d still be a hard pass.

这个俚语强调你不愿遵守某一个请求——即使请求者有生命危险，你也不愿意服从。

16. not on your Nelly 绝对不

The British expression not on your Nelly, in its earliest incarnation in a 1941 issue of the New Statesman . Not on your Nelly is just another way of saying not on your life.

not on your Nelly是英式表达，这个表达最早出现在1941年发行的《新政治家》上。Not on your Nelly是not on your life的另一种表达。

17. not on your tintype

Atintypewas a photograph taken as a positive on a thin tin plate but also found its way into this phrase, which dates to at least 1900.

Tintype最初指的锡版照相法，后在大约1900年以前Tintype在短语中也有应用，。

18. not for all the tea in China绝不可能

This phrase, despite drawing on Britain’s national obsession, is actually originally from colloquial Australian English.

英国人很倾向于用这个短语，但这个短语源于澳大利亚口语。

19. not in a million years 绝不可能

People haven’t been using it for quite a million years, but it certainly dates back over a century.

这个短语的使用可以追溯到一个世纪以前，但已经很久没什么人使用了。

20. under no circumstances 决不

For avoidance of doubt, this one pretty much covers all bases. Circumstance was originally a noun of action or condition, in the singular, but is now usually pluralized.

为避免产生歧义，你可以用这个词组来表达坚决的否定。起初词组中的circumstance用的是单数，但现在都是用复数形式了。

21. not likely 不见得;不会

Although you’re probably in complete control of the likelihood or otherwise of something happening if you say not likely, it’s an option for dismissing someone’s suggestion with a bit of sass.

如果你说not likely，你可能对事情的可能性及发生的事有一定把握。如果有人提了无礼请求，可以用这个词拒绝。

22. not for Joe 决不

The phrase not for Joe, meaning ‘not on any account’, dates from the mid-19th century and appears to use Joe as a non-specific person (although the phrase may have originally arisen from the name of the 18th-century comedian Joe Miller, and a popular jest-book published after his death).

短语not for Joe意思为not on any account “决不”，可以追溯到19世纪中叶，当时joe并不代表具体的个人，(尽管这个词可能最早出现是由于18世纪的喜剧演员乔•米勒，一个受欢迎的笑话集在他去世后出版)。

23. thumbs down 拒绝

Turning the thumb down is, of course, a gesture intended to indicate disapproval or rejection –and the term can be used figuratively for the same thing; i.e. a substitute for no –but it’s got a somewhat muddled history. The earliest uses of thumbs down and thumbs up relate to ‘the use of the thumb by the spectators in the ancient amphitheatre’–but in these instances, thumbs up would indicate rejection.

当然将大拇指反转向下的手势表示反对或拒绝，这个短语可以用来代替no——但短语的来源历史却比较混乱。最早使用拇指向下指的是“古剧场中观众大拇指指向”。但是，在这些情况下，大拇指向上意味着拒绝。

24. pigs might fly 不可能

Pigs (we hate to break it to you) don’t fly, andpigs might fly, pigs have wings, and similar expressions are used to indicate impossibility or incredulity. The first known use, in this way, of pig’s grounded behaviour is not quite synonymous with no –but has the distinction of being found in Alice’s Adventures of Wonderland: ‘‘I’ve a right to think,’said Alice sharply…‘Just about as much right,’said the Duchess, ‘as pigs have to fly.’’

猪当然是不会飞的，类似的pigs might fly, pigs have wings地表达用来表示“不可能;怀疑”。第一次为众所周知的以猪的行为作比喻的用法是在《爱丽丝梦游仙境》中，爱丽丝说：“I've a right to think(我有权思考)”。公爵夫人回答了一句“Just about as much right as pigs have to fly”(对，这个权利就像猪在天空飞翔一样)。

25. fat chance 机会很小

Fat chance is an ironic use of the adjective fat in its sense ‘a large amount, a great deal’. Interestingly, this sense seems only to be used ironically, implying ‘very little, hardly anything’.

Fat chance是形容词fat的讽刺用法。Fat chance原意为“大量的”，有趣的是，通常都含有讽刺意味，表示“很少;几乎没有”。

26. catch me!

Catch me! and catch me at it! are also suggestive of their opposite: that is, that the interlocutor would never be able to catch the person at it, since it (whatever ‘it’is) wouldn’t happen. The sense of catch being used is ‘to come upon suddenly or unexpectedly’, which is also still used in sentences such as ‘I catch myself speaking like my mother’.

Catch me和catch me at it(抓住我)有时也表达相反的含义：表示对方并不能发现某人在某方面的真实状况(it可指具体的方面)，暗指这件事不会发生。Catch在这里的含义为“偶然发现、无意中发现”。这种含义现在仍然使用，例如“I catch myself speaking like my mother”。(我突然发现我和我妈妈的说话语气很像)。

27. no fear 不

Fear here originally meant ‘ground or reason for alarm’, though even in its earliest uses (including a 16th-century translation of Psalms) it appeared chiefly in (there is) no fear –that is, that there is no grounds for alarm. The usual sense now is as an informal but definite no.

这里的fear最初表示“惊慌/恐惧的原因和根据”，在最早的使用中(16世纪的诗篇翻译)，no fear—“没有原因和根据的惊恐”。现在no fear 是no的非正式表达。

28. go fish 拒绝

Go fishis an American card game, usually played by children, in which each player in turn asks an opponent for a particular card and is told to ‘go fish’from the undealt deck if denied. The term has taken on broader use as a playful way of saying no.

Go fish是美国纸牌游戏，通常由儿童参与，每位玩家轮流向对手要特定的牌，如果对方拒绝给牌就会说“go fish”，后来这个说法被广泛使用来代表示一种玩笑式的“no”。

29. not a cat (in hell)’s chance 没有机会

If you think the pig did badly, the cat fares even worse: as far back as Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue in 1796, he cited ‘No more chance than a cat in hell without claws; said of one who enters into a dispute or quarrel with one greatly above his match’. Its application now is, of course, rather wider than disputers and quarrellers.

如果你认为猪的表现力不够，那猫的表现更糟:早在在1796年，格罗斯的俗语词典中，他以“No more chance than a cat in hell without claws;来比喻一个人进入一个对手远比自身强大的争议或吵架之中。当然，现在的应用更广泛，不仅仅运用在争吵中。

关于委婉拒绝别人的方法，你都学会了吗？