10個常見標誌背後的故事(下)

Signs

3.停車標誌

In the early days of automobiles in the US, there was precious little signage on the roads, and there was anarchic competition between cars, horses, and bicycles.

美國剛有汽車時，街道上標誌難得一見，路上汽車、馬車和自行車爭相奔馳。

The first stop sign appeared in Detroit, Michigan, in 1915, the same year that the first electric traffic signal appeared in Cleveland.

1915年，在密歇根州的底特律市出現了第一個停車標誌；同年，第一個電子交通訊號燈現身克利夫蘭市。

The first stop sign was a simple 0.6-meter square sheet of metal with black lettering on a white background.

第一個停車標誌是一個0.6m大小的方形金屬片，黑字寫在白色背景上。

In 1923, the Mississippi Valley Association of State Highway Departments developed a set of guidelines for signage design based on levels of danger.

1923年，州公路部的密西西比河谷協會根據危險程度設計了一系列標識指導方案。

The logic was that the more sides there were on a sign, the more potentially hazardous the situation was.

其原理爲標誌邊越多，潛在危險越大。

The circle, with infinite sides, was used for railway crossings, and the octagon was designated for the second-highest level of danger.

圓形，因其邊無數，用於公路和鐵路的交叉口，八邊形預示着危險程度爲乙等。

Diamonds, meanwhile, were for warning signs, with rectangles used for purely information signs.

而菱形用於警告，矩形用於信息公告。

According to Texas A&M University Civil Engineering Professor Gene Hawkins, "You have to realize this was done by engineers, and engineers can be overly analytical."

德克薩斯農工大學土木工程教授吉恩·霍金說："這些圖案是工程師設計的，他們會分析過度。"

The first octagonal stop signs still had a white background, which was later changed to yellow.

第一個八角形的停車標誌背景爲白色，後來換爲黃色。

In 1935, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways defined the stop sign as a 0.6-meter octagon with a yellow background and red or black letters.

1935年，《街道和高速公路交通控制設備標準手冊》規定停車標誌爲邊長0.6米的八邊形，背景爲黃色，字爲黑色或紅色。

This was changed in a 1954 revision that was developing a color code system for both railways and roads.

1954年，修訂鐵路公路標誌色標法時改變了這種規則。

Hawkins explains, "Red has always been associated with stop. The problem was they could not produce a reflective material in red that would last. It just was not durable until companies came up with a product in the late '40s, early '50s."

霍金解釋說："紅色意味着停止。問題是，那時他們生產不出永不退色的紅色反光材料。直到20世紀40年代末、50年代初，纔有公司生產出一種耐用的材料。"

Further revisions of the Manual in 1978, 1988, and 2000 retained the iconic shape, which is now commonly recognized worldwide.

1978年、1988年和2000年的修訂都保留了這個圖標，即今天世界各地可見的停車標誌。

And Female Symbols

2.性別標誌

The standard explanation for the male and female symbols is that they were derived from Greek mythology, namely the Shield of Mars and the Mirror of Venus, items traditionally associated with the male and female genders, respectively.

對性別標誌最權威的解說認爲，他們來源於希臘神話，即《戰神之盾》和《維納斯之鏡》，這兩樣東西分別代表男性和女性。

However, there is little evidence linking those particular objects to the current symbols, and the actual history is far more complex than that.

然而，說性別符號與這兩樣東西有關，證據不足，而真實歷史比神話更爲複雜。

In ancient astrology and alchemy, various celestial objects were associated with different Earth metals. The Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn respectively corresponded with gold, silver, iron, mercury or quicksilver, copper, tin, and lead.

古星相學和鍊金術中有很多天體和地球上的物質有關，如太陽、月亮、水星、金星、木星、土星分別和金、銀、鐵、水銀、銅、錫、鉛有關。

This was the system learned by 18th-century botanist Carl Linnaeus, who was born before the development of the modern system of chemical notation using a letter or letters taken from the Greek or Latin names of the elements, which was developed in 1814.

這是18世紀瑞典植物學家卡爾·林奈發現的，他出生時，人們還沒發明出化學符號法。化學符號法發明於1814年，是從物質的希臘或拉丁名中選一個或幾個字母表示物質。

Before this, chemists often used the same symbols that medieval alchemists had used.

而在化學符號法發明前，化學家和中世紀的鍊金師用的符號一樣。

Linnaeus decided to borrow the chemical system for his botanical notation as a crude form of shorthand. He first used the symbols formally in a 1756 dissertation on hybrid plants and then later in his work Species Plantarum.

林奈借用化學符號系統形成了生物學符號速記的雛形。他在1756年寫雜交植物論文時正式使用了這種符號，後來，他也在著作《植物種志》使用了這些符號。

He used the old astrological and alchemical symbols for Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the Sun to represent woody, herbaceous perennial, biennial, and annual plants and the symbols for Mars, Venus, and Mercury to represent male, female, and hermaphroditic conditions.

他用標記土星、木星、火星和太陽的古占星術和鍊金術符號來表示木本植物、草本植物、多年生植物、兩年生植物和一年生植物，並用火星、進行和水星符號代表陽性、陰性和兩性畸形的情況。

Soon, other botanists and zoologists adopted the use of these symbols, as they were convenient and easy to remember.

由於這些符號方便易記，其他動植物學家很快便接受了這套符號。

Various attempts to link the symbols to pictographs, runes, and Babylonian astrological symbols have not panned out, and they are largely believed to be truncated forms of works in the early Greek script.

人們試圖將這些符號和象形符號、北歐符文及巴比倫占星符號結合，但各種嘗試都以失敗告終，且人們認爲這些符號是從早期希臘文中截取而來的。

The female symbol is derived from the goddess Phosphorus (associated with the planet Venus but not the Roman goddess) and the male symbol from the planet Thouros (the planet Mars but not the Roman god).

陰性符號源於金星（金星星球而非羅馬女神），陽性符號來源於火星（火星星球而非羅馬的神）。

tion Mark

1.問號

There are a number of contending explanations for the question mark, which was once called the interrogation point.

對於問號（曾叫the interrogation point）的解釋，有很多爭論。

The most popular explanation is that it derived from the Latin word quaestio, or "inquiry," which was written in shorthand as "qo" and eventually became the mark we use today.

最常見的解釋說，問號來源於拉丁詞"quaestio"，即"詢問"，可縮略寫作"qo"，最終成爲我們今天使用的問號。

Others believe the question mark could have derived from a neume used in medieval musical notation called the punctus interruptus, which indicated the intonation at the end of a question.

還有些人認爲問號可能來源於中世紀教堂音樂中一種叫做"punctus interruptus"的樂譜符號，這種符號表示問句的結尾。

Some even believe that it came from Egypt and was derived from the appearance of a cat's tail.

還有人認爲問號來源於埃及，是仿照貓尾巴創造而成。

Others believe that the English scholar Alcuin of York developed the first question mark while he was working at Charlemagne's court and developing a new system of punctuation. His question mark resembled a point with a tilde above it and became widely accepted by the ninth century.

還有一派觀點認爲，問號是約克的阿爾昆在查理曼大帝宮廷供職時發明的標點符號。他發明的問號形如"上方有波浪符的點"，此符號在九世紀時廣泛使用。

The most recent theory was proposed in 2011 based on fifth-century Syriac manuscripts of the Bible, which are known for their liberal use of dots with unclear meaning.

2011年，根據古敘利亞手書的《聖經》，出現了問號來源的最新說法，書裏出現大量點號，但意義不明。

Cambridge University's Dr. Chip Coakley believes that one of these, the zagwa elaya, or "vertical double dot," is placed above certain questions that are not immediately obvious as questions.

劍橋大學的契普·克利博士認爲其中的一種符號——"zagwa elaya"——"垂直雙點"，用於一些問句性質不太明顯的問題。

For example, "What are you doing?" is still obviously a question with a mark, but "You're leaving?" would become a statement without it.

例如"你在做什麼?"，如果沒有問號，仍被當做問句，但"你要走了？"這句話沒有問號的話，會變成一個陳述句。

While it is likely that the question marks used in later Greek and Latin script were an independent invention, if Coakley is correct, the zagwa elaya is the earliest known question mark in history.

然而，後來在希臘和拉丁文中使用的問號，是新發明，與此無關。如果克利博士觀點正確的話，zagwa elaya是史上已知最早使用的問號。