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It’s that time again when we’re busy buying, wrapping, and giving them. Sometimes we call them gifts, sometimes presents. Is there a difference?

又到了買禮物，包禮物并送禮物的時候了。有時，我們會用gift表示禮物，有時我們也會用present。那么，兩者之間有什么區別嗎？

The words come to us from different language families. Gift comes from the old Germanic root for “to give.” It referred to an act of giving, and then, to the thing being given. In Old English it meant the dowry given to a bride’s parents. Present comes from the French for "to present." A present is the thing being presented or bestowed. Both words were in use for the idea of something undergoing a transfer of possession without expectation of payment from the 13th century onward.

這兩個單詞來自于不同的語言。Gift來自表示“給予”的古老德語詞根。這個詞根的意思是給出的行為，隨后演化為所給出的東西。在古英語中，gift表示提供給新娘父母的嫁妝。Present來自法語“呈現、提供”一詞。禮物是指提供或給予的東西。從13世紀開始，這兩個詞都用于表達給出某物并無需獲得報酬的含義。

The words gift and present are well-matched synonyms that mean essentially the same thing, but even well-matched synonyms have their own connotations and distinctive patterns of use. Gift applies to a wider range of situations. Gifts can be talents: You can have the gift of gab, or a musical gift. Gifts can be intangibles: There is the gift of understanding or the gift of a quiet day. We generally don’t use present to describe things like that. Presents are more concrete or a bit more, well, present. If your whole family gave donations to your college fund for your birthday would you say “I got a lot of presents”? It doesn’t exactly sound wrong, but since you never hold these donations in your hand, gifts seems to fit better.

Gift和present是兩個非常匹配的同義詞并基本表示相同的含義。但是，即使是匹配非常好的同義詞也有自己的內涵和獨特的使用方式。Gift適用的情景更廣。Gifts可以是才能：有口才（gift of gab）或有音樂天賦（a musical gift.）。Gifts還可以是無形的：理解能力或天賜寧靜。我們一般不會用present來做這樣的描述。Present是指更加具體或更加現實存在的物品。如果你的家庭為慶祝你的生日而向你所就讀的大學基金捐款，你會說“I got a lot of presents”嗎？這樣說盡管并不算錯，但是你永遠不會把捐贈拿在手里，所以gifts似乎更適合。

Gift can also be an attributive noun, acting like an adjective to modify another noun. What do you call the type of shop where you can buy presents for people? A gift shop. What do you call the basket of presents that you can have sent to all your employees? A gift basket. Present doesn’t work well in this role of describing other nouns. We have gift boxes, gift cards, and gift wrap, not present boxes, present cards, and present wrap.

Gift還可做定語性名詞，作為形容詞來修飾另一個名詞。你會如何稱呼可以購買禮物的店鋪？Gift shop（禮品店）。你會如何稱呼贈送給所有員工的、裝滿禮物的籃子？Gift basket（禮品籃）。而present則不可以這樣用。我們可以有gift boxes（禮盒）、gift cards（禮品卡）和gift wrap（禮品包裝紙），但不可以有present boxes，present cards和present wrap。

Gift appears to be used more frequently than present, though it is difficult to get accurate counts, because if you compare occurrences of the noun present with the noun gift, you include that other noun present, meaning the here and now. However, the plural noun presents captures only the word we want. Gifts outnumbers presents in the Corpus of Contemporary American English by four to one.

盡管很難獲得準確的數字，但是，Gift的使用頻率似乎比present更多，這是因為如果你將名詞present的出現頻次和名詞gift的出現頻次相比較，表示“現在”含義的另一個名詞present也會被包括在內。在當代美式英語語料庫中，gift與present的使用比例為4比1。

Still, according to my personal sense of the words, present—though it may not be as common—is more casual sounding than gift. I expect a child to ask Santa Claus for lots and lots of presents, not many, many gifts. But whether it’s gifts or presents you prefer, I wish you many and lots this year, of both the tangible and intangible kind.

然而，根據我個人的語感，present-盡管也許不是很常見，但其實聽起來比gift更加隨意。我期待孩子向圣誕老人要許多許多presents，而不是許多許多gifts。但是，不管你喜歡用gifts還是presents，我都希望你今年多多收獲禮物，無論是有形的還是無形的禮物。

來源：Mental Floss

編輯&翻譯：上海譯銳翻譯