tiptoe這個詞的意思是腳尖,用腳尖走。而tiptoe around主要有兩個意思:
1.做某事小心翼翼的 (to act very cautiously about something )
例句:
Yet to this day they tend to tiptoe around Muslims as a distinct market segment.
而今他們應對穆斯林這個決然不同的市場時總是小心翼翼。
2. 避免談論令人不快的或者有爭議的事情(to avoid speaking about a painful or controversial issue)
例句:
In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt tried to tiptoe around the war question and when that didn't wash, he simply lied about it.
1940年,羅斯福想悄悄地規(guī)避戰(zhàn)爭問題。當他這樣做瞞不了人時,他干脆說謊。
今天朋友在看美劇Gossip Girl的時候遇到了這個tiptoe around,順便分享一下這段對白:
Vanessa: I gotta go. So I will see you later at the library, and I'm sorry about before with the Tisch catalog.
(我得走了 一會兒我們在圖書館見吧 還有之前Tisch項目的事情, 我很抱歉。)
Dan: It's fine.
(沒什么)
Vanessa: Dan, I don't know how to do this. We've been tiptoeing around each other for days.
(Dan 我不知道該怎么辦 這幾天我們都在回避著彼此。)
Dan: Look, we're... we're two artists in a relationship,and sometimes we're gonna be competing for the same things,So,
all right, we're... we're... we're smart people.
(聽著, 我們是... 兩個在戀愛當中的藝術家,有時候我們會為了某一件事情而共同競爭,所以沒什么的 ,我們是... 我們是聰明人。)