兔子與籃球有什么共同點(diǎn)？“瘋狂三月”

Before March fades too far from our memories, we wanted to follow up on a back story that appeared recently in the versions of our Morning Briefing in Asia and Europe.

在三月從我們的記憶里淡去之前，我們想對(duì)近期出現(xiàn)在我們?cè)鐖?bào)亞洲版和歐洲版中的一篇幕后故事進(jìn)行后續(xù)報(bào)道。

In it, we explained to our international audience the history of the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament, which acquired the nickname “March Madness” in the 1980s.

在那篇幕后故事中，我們對(duì)國(guó)際讀者解釋了NCAA(國(guó)家大學(xué)體育協(xié)會(huì))籃球聯(lián)賽的歷史，該聯(lián)賽在1980年代獲得了“瘋狂三月”的稱(chēng)號(hào)。

As it relates to basketball, March Madness can be traced to 1939, when it was used by the Illinois High School Association to describe a statewide high-school basketball tournament: “A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.”

“瘋狂三月”與籃球的歷史可追溯至1939年，當(dāng)時(shí)伊利諾伊州高中聯(lián)盟用它來(lái)描述一場(chǎng)全州范圍內(nèi)的高中籃球聯(lián)賽：“一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)的三月瘋狂可能會(huì)補(bǔ)充、促進(jìn)人們保持頭腦清醒，讓社會(huì)保持在一個(gè)平衡的水平上。”

One of our erudite readers, however, pointed out that the link between March and madness is much older: The old English phrase “mad as a March hare” stretches back to the 1500s.

然而，我們一位最為博學(xué)之一的讀者指出，三月與瘋狂之間的關(guān)系要回溯到更為久遠(yuǎn)以前：古老的英語(yǔ)短語(yǔ)“mad as a March hare”(瘋得像只三月的野兔)可追溯至1500年代。

The idiom, used to describe someone who is crazy or irrational, derives its meaning from the behavior of hares at the beginning of breeding season.

這個(gè)諺語(yǔ)被用來(lái)描述瘋狂、不理性的人，意思源自于野兔在交配季節(jié)開(kāi)始時(shí)的行為。

In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” from 1865, the March Hare famously attends the Mad Hatter’s tea party, before which Alice thinks: “The March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May, it won’t be raving mad — at least not so mad as it was in March.”

在劉易斯·卡羅爾(Lewis Carroll)1865年的《愛(ài)麗絲漫游奇境記》(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)中，三月野兔參加了瘋帽子的茶會(huì)，這一事件十分著名，在這之前，愛(ài)麗絲想道：“三月野兔會(huì)是最有趣的，可能因?yàn)楝F(xiàn)在是五月，它不會(huì)瘋狂到極點(diǎn)——至少不會(huì)像三月那么瘋狂。”