【英語習語】

against the clock

【習語注釋】

(to be) against the clock的意思是“to be in competition with the passage of time; to be hurrying to accomplish something within a set time”，即“與時間的流逝競爭；急于在規定的時間內完成某事”，也就是我們常說的“與時間賽跑”或“爭分奪秒”或“只爭朝夕”。

【習語運用】

The emergency services were working against the clock as the tide began to rise.

開始漲潮了，緊急救援機構正在爭分奪秒地工作。

You only have an hour to complete the game, so it's a mad dash against the clock.

你只有一個小時來完成這場比賽，所以得鉚足勁頭爭分奪秒。

If you got up earlier, you wouldn't spend half the morning racing against the clock.

如果你起得早一點，你就不會半個上午忙個不停了。

【閑話習語】

乍看到該習語，很多人會以為它很可能源自體育運動領域，但其實它與運動毫無關聯。當然，這個習語肯定是在時鐘發明之后才出現的：）事實上，較早運用該習語的是愛爾蘭首府都柏林（Dublin）的報紙《The Freeman's Journal》，該報紙在1857年2月有過這樣的報道：

"Irish members are free from the annoyance and physical exertion which would have been demanded of them had the division on Thursday night resulted differently, and a long series of adjournments and speaking against the clock, protracted sittings, and harassing divisions have been avoided."

但該習語剛開始出現之后，并未得到廣泛使用，而是直到二十世紀初開始，才得以推廣使用。比如，美國的報紙《The New York Herald》（1917年12月）有過這樣的報道：

"All newspaper work is a struggle against the clock. The fourth year students may be thankful that they were not asked to write an obituary of, say, Earl Kitchener with only three quarters of an hour before going to press."

那么，你還知道英語里“爭分奪秒”的其它說法嗎？歡迎留言探討。