Reader question:
Please explain “mean street”, “mean city” in this sentence: “On a mean street in a mean city, a thief tries to snatch an old woman’s bag.”
My comments:
This reads like a scene straight from Oliver Twist, a novel by Charles Dickens.
On a mean street in a mean city live the poor people. Crimes may be rife there, too.
Anyways, as an adjective, “a mean street in a mean city” means a poor street in a poverty stricken city. The question is, why?
I’m not so sure, but the partial root of the word “mean” as an adjective is from Middle English mene, meaning common, shared, and from Latin medianus, or median, meaning middle, according to Merriam-Webster.com.
Perhaps from these clues one can make sense of “mean” as an adjective in “mean street”. It offers connotations of being common and average, in the middle. If you have what is known as the “mean income”, for instance, you make the average income of your city or country. The “golden mean” means the golden middle way, never going to extremes.
If mean income means average income, how come “mean” in “mean city” means poor?
Originally mean streets and mean cities must have just been streets and cities where common folks congregate. They’re the masses in comparison with the elite, the upper classes of aristocrats and rich merchants.
The common folk may not all be poor, for sure. Some are jobless but many are member of the working class, holding jobs and leading decent lives. At least one hopes so.
However, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, even the average income earners now look very poor. Look at the biggest cities in the world today, where commercialism and profit making are at their fiercest and worst. If you have an average income, i.e. that you actually work for your money in the ordinary way, holding a 9 to 5 job, do you feel very rich or very poor?
More likely very poor. That’s right. That’s not right, that’s actually wrong but that’s it. There may be a lot of people like yourself, but, all of you feel very poor because of the comparison with the small number of people who are extremely rich.
Mean street means poor-people’s street. Suddenly, it all seems to make sense, doesn’t it?
Alright, here are media examples:
1. The club’s original incarnation in Manhattan is disguised as a derelict Jewish tailor’s shop and located on a mean street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Entrance is by referral and appointment only, and the place is so publicity-shy that, if they have heard of it at all, most New Yorkers assume it’s an urban myth, or just flatly deny its existence.
“A place with rules? No, I’d have been there.” But then genuine customers - who have made it past the referral system, telephoned in advance to book a seat, found the unmarked door and negotiated the double set of velvet curtains into the railway carriage size, Jazz Age speakeasy-style interior - will deny its existence anyway. Because that is one of the first rules of admission. And while the rules are strictly enforced, the customers are, anyway, self-regulating.
- The most secret bar in London, Standard.co.UK, March 7, 2002.
2. Officials announced that a number of schools, designated “safe havens,” would be open to feed children breakfast and lunch and keep them off Chicago’s mean streets. The police superintendent spoke of strategies for avoiding a return to the summer's plague of drive-by shootings.
There’s much theorizing about why children come to school from dismal and discouraging environments. Conservatives blame a decline in moral standards and the failure of parents to live up to their responsibilities. Liberals point to endemic poverty and the lingering effects of racism and segregation.
One thing is for sure: It’s not the children’s fault.
- Teachers’ lesson sometimes show up years later, ChicagoTribune.com, September 18, 2017.
3. Sharon-Lee White is a skid-row Santa.
Each year, the secret Santa lovingly wraps up a rather unorthodox care package for residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Only this year, it’s not such a secret.
“I think it’s better if you do good things and don’t tell people about it,” White said somewhat reluctantly at Pub 340, where she serves as general manager.
“Then I thought it might be good for the people who need help.”
White is publicity-shy, so it was up to daughter Amy Christian to spread the word.
“I was reading something in The Province, and I thought, ‘They should write something about Mom,’” said Amy.
“There are a lot of people who don’t get anything for Christmas. This is not about recognition or accolades, it’s about helping other people.”
White has a deep understanding of how tough it is in the skids. When her marriage ended, she found herself on the hardscrabble streets, trying to make ends meet.
“I used to live in Lynn Valley, and I’d drive right by here every day. If you’d have told me I’d be living down here one day, I’d say, ‘You’re out of your mind.’”
Fifteen years of gritty living behind her now, White considers the curse of life on the streets to be a blessing.
“Sometimes I say, ‘God, what am I doing here?’ I must have done something really bad in my past life. But I’ve learned so much about life and other people – it’s turned out to be a blessing.”
- Life on mean streets a ‘blessing,’ says secret Santa, Canada.com, November 21, 2017.
About the author:
Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.
江西南昌高校报告学生艾滋病例135例 死亡7例
高考英语作文范文:一次成功的经历
英文谚语
The Spring Festival
中国已批准落实2030年可持续发展议程国别方案
教育部官员称对网络语言要引导规范而不是消灭
My favourite fruit
维多利亚女王一条内裤拍出天价创纪录!
2016年5月21日GRE写作机经1
In the park.
My teacher
超市排队有技巧!原来这样排队结账最快
5天大新生儿被当成布娃娃 遭63岁男子打脸
少儿英语语法顺口溜:be动词的用法
少儿英语语法顺口溜:there be; be going to和have got
GRE写作高分的八个小技巧
政府尝试镇压的语言 新加坡式英语
My Hometown
what的用法
My favorite sport
2016年5月21日GRE阅读机经
GRE考生的写作5.5高分经验分享
英语四级选词填空高分秘笈:如何确定词性
2016年5月21日GRE填空机经
离婚率上涨的罪魁祸首竟是高房价
不满狂晒成长照 奥地利18岁女孩将父母告上法庭
book
夜莺颂
The old man and the sea
攻克GRE阅读之经典长难句练习1
不限 |
英语教案 |
英语课件 |
英语试题 |
不限 |
不限 |
上册 |
下册 |
不限 |