密歇根新闻广播 让人迷惑不解的stumble

A listener named Allen recently wrote to us about a confusing book review.

He was reading the Toledo Blade, when he saw a review of Barbara Kingsolver's new novel "Unsheltered." Under a picture of Kingsolver was the caption¹ "Barbara Kingsolver, one of America's hardiest² novelists, stumbled on the lost history of [Mary] Treat."

Allen says he immediately assumed the reviewer was not impressed with Kingsolver's book.

When he read that Kingsolver had "stumbled on" the lost history, Allen thought that the reviewer meant the author had lost her footing and failed at her attempt to write about said history. But that wasn't the case.

Allen says when he looked again, he realized what the reviewer actually meant was that Kingsolver had discovered Treat's history by chance. To make that point clear, Allen argues that the reviewer should have said that Kingsolver "stumbled on to" the lost history of Treat.

This raises the question, did the reviewer use the wrong preposition?

One thing is certain, the reviewer had a lot of prepositions to choose from. "On," "on to," "upon" and "across" are just a few that work with "stumble." What's tricky³ is that these can all be used to convey either a physical or metaphorical⁴ meaning.

"Stumble" started off meaning "to physically⁵ lose one's footing," but it gets a metaphorical meaning very early on. By the 16th century, "stumble" has already come to mean to come upon something unexpectedly.

Merriam Webster says "stumble across," "stumble on", and "stumble upon" all mean exactly the same thing. When it comes to Allen's question, we do think that "stumble on" sounds ambiguous in that case. It could mean either someone came across something by chance or that they messed up.

1 caption   

n.说明，字幕，标题；v.加上标题，加上说明

参考例句：

• I didn't understand the drawing until I read the caption.直到我看到这幅画的说明才弄懂其意思。
• There is a caption under the picture.图片下边附有说明。

2 hardiest   

能吃苦耐劳的，坚强的( hardy的最高级 )； （植物等）耐寒的

参考例句：

• This trip will season even the hardiest traveller. 这个旅行会让最坚硬的旅行者适应。

3 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

4 metaphorical   

a.隐喻的，比喻的

参考例句：

• Here, then, we have a metaphorical substitution on a metonymic axis. 这样，我们在换喻（者翻译为转喻，一种以部分代替整体的修辞方法）上就有了一个隐喻的替代。
• So, in a metaphorical sense, entropy is arrow of time. 所以说，我们可以这样作个比喻：熵像是时间之矢。

5 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。