AEE: Vocabulary That is Sick but not Sickening
2025/4/19
All Ears English Podcast
A
Aubrey Carter
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Lindsay McMahon
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Mateus Profisio
Aubrey Carter: 我在节目中解释了sickening一词的双重含义。它既可以表示负面情绪，例如厌恶、反感，也可以表示正面情绪，例如对美好事物的高度赞赏。这取决于具体的语境和说话人的语气。例如，我们可以说某人的行为令人作呕（sickening），也可以说一对情侣的爱情令人羡慕（sickening）。这两种情况下，sickening表达的感情强度都非常高，只是情感的性质不同。此外，我还解释了sicken这个动词的用法，以及sick在俚语中的含义，即“酷”或“令人印象深刻”。需要注意的是，sick作为俚语使用时，需要结合具体的语境和语气，否则容易与“生病”的含义混淆。
Lindsay McMahon: 我补充了Aubrey的观点，并从语义和语用角度对sickening一词的褒贬义用法进行了更深入的分析。我指出，sickening的褒义用法通常用于表达一种“甜蜜的过分”或“强烈的过分”的感觉，这与甜点过甜或气味过于浓烈给人带来的不适感有一定的关联性。在日常生活中，我们可能会用sickening来形容一对情侣的爱情过于甜蜜，或者一个婴儿过于可爱，这并非字面意义上的“令人作呕”，而是表达一种由衷的赞美和羡慕。
Mateus Profisio: 我在节目中提出了一个关于“how you like them apples?”和“how about them apples?”以及“sickening”一词在褒义语境下用法的疑问。
Supporting_evidences
Aubrey Carter: So sickening is an adjective. It can be used negatively to mean something is super disappointing or disgusting. Yeah. Right. And for example, his behavior is sickening. That means you find it appalling. You think it is atrocious, despicable. Disgusting. Yes. Yes. And maybe it makes you feel sick how bad it is. Right. Right. Or that politicians actions are sickening.
Aubrey Carter: But then there are moments when you can use it in a positive way. So here's an example. That couple is so in love, it's sickening.
Lindsay McMahon: Now, what is happening here, Aubrey? Let's break this down. Yeah. So maybe you see a couple, you know, embracing, kissing, and you might say this to a friend, especially like if you're not in a relationship or you're a little bit bitter, but but really what you're saying is that it's beautiful like this is beautiful they're so in love it's actually extremely positive yeah but we use this um almost like slang to be kind of funny be like that is sickening it's so beautiful there's or maybe like that baby is so cute it's sickening
Lindsay McMahon: So I think that's kind of related to this idea of, oh, this couple in love. It's just like the metaphorical version of overdoing it on sweetness or intensity. Does that make sense? Exactly, right? And you can... Any smell or... There are a lot of things that you could find sickening. And you literally mean this is kind of making me sick to my stomach. Like a dessert that's too sweet. A very strong smell that's noxious, right? But we also use it, yeah, just like you said, that... overly sweet feeling.
Aubrey Carter: Sick as an adjective used positively. It's slang to mean something is cool or impressive. It is, like you said, part of someone's personality. And you have to remember it means cool, like hip. It can't just mean good, right? You wouldn't be like, that TV is sick. I really liked it. I bet it was expensive.
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