My mother was nonplussed. We all, including my two cousins who were visiting that week, had an impulse to clap.
On the matter of etymologies, however, Oliver begged to differ. “Ah?!” was my father’s startled response.
“The word is actually not an Arabic word,” he said.
“How so?”
My father was clearly mimicking Socratic irony, which would start with an innocent “You don’t say,” only then to lead his interlocutor onto turbulent shoals.
“It’s a long story, so bear with me, Pro.” Suddenly Oliver had become serious. “Many Latin words are derived from the Greek. In the case of ‘apricot,’ however, it’s the other way around; the Greek takes over from Latin. The Latin word was praecoquum, from pre-coquere, pre-cook, to ripen early, as in ‘precocious,’ meaning premature.
“The Byzantines borrowed praecox, and it became prekokkia or berikokki, which is finally how the Arabs must have inherited it as al-birquq.”
 
母親一臉困惑。而包括當(dāng)時(shí)來做客的兩位表親在內(nèi)，我們都有想鼓掌的沖動(dòng)。
然而、奧利弗表示絕對(duì)無法同意父親關(guān)于詞源的見解。“?。?rdquo;父親吃了一驚。
“這個(gè)字其實(shí)不是阿拉伯語。”
“怎么說？”父親顯然在模仿那個(gè)蘇格拉底式的反諷，先從天真無邪的“真的嗎”開始，接著把談話者引入混亂的陷阱中。
“說來話長(zhǎng)，所以請(qǐng)耐心聽我說，教授。”奧利弗突然嚴(yán)肅起來。“許多拉丁詞匯源于希臘語。但是就‘杏’來說，則是相反的狀況；是希臘語借用拉丁語。拉丁詞是?praecoquum，源于?pre-coquere，也就是?pre-cook，早熟的意思，跟?precocious?算是同義字。拜占庭人借用了?praecox，后來演變成?prekokkia?或?berikokki ，這必定是阿拉伯人后來繼承了?al-birquq?一詞的由來。”
 
My mother, unable to resist his charm, reached out to him and tousled his hair and said, “Che muvi star!”
“He is right, there is no denying it,” said my father under his breath, as though mimicking the part of a cowered Galileo forced to mutter the truth to himself.
“Courtesy of Philology 101,” said Oliver.
All I kept thinking of was apricock precock, precock apricock19.
 
母親無法抗拒奧利弗的魅力，伸手揉亂他的頭發(fā)說：“大明星！”
“他說的沒錯(cuò)，無可否認(rèn)。”父親壓低嗓子說，仿佛在模仿畏畏縮縮的伽利略只敢對(duì)自己喃喃說出事實(shí)的樣子。
“這要多虧文獻(xiàn)學(xué)概論這堂課。”奧利弗說。
但我腦子里一直盤旋的只有杏器、早熟的性器。
 
One day I saw Oliver sharing the same ladder with the gardener, trying to learn all he could about Anchise’s grafts, which explained why our apricots were larger, fleshier, juicier than most apricots in the region. He became fascinated with the grafts, especially when he discovered that the gardener could spend hours sharing everything he knew about them with anyone who cared to ask.
 
有一天我看到奧利弗和園丁安喀斯共用一個(gè)梯子，想盡可能把他的嫁接方法都學(xué)會(huì)。正因?yàn)檫@種嫁接法，我們家的杏比同地區(qū)其他大部分杏更大個(gè)兒、更肥美、更多汁。當(dāng)奧利弗發(fā)現(xiàn)只要有任何人愿意開口問，園丁就樂意花上好幾個(gè)鐘頭不厭其煩地跟人分享他有關(guān)杏的一切知識(shí)后，他對(duì)嫁接法更是入迷。

《請(qǐng)以你的名字呼喚我》