undeterred, Rest on one's laurels, look to one's laurels, impromptu fig leaf

 

Undeterred by Channel’s Perils, Desperate Migrants Still Plan to Cross By Constant Méheut and Norimitsu Onishi The number of migrants setting off into the English Channel by boat has soared in recent months. The deaths Wednesday of at least 27 people trying to make the crossing illustrate how dangerous it is.

No visitors were complaining as they filed past that photo and even more graphic examples of male nudity. Not so in the city. Posters of the three men were given impromptu fig-leafs _ lines of red tape covering their private parts.
當參觀民眾排隊經過這張照片或其他更寫實的男性裸體範例前面時，沒有任何人抱怨。但在市區其他地方就並非如此。這3名男子的海報正被臨時貼上無花果葉，也就是用數條紅色膠帶遮住他們的重要部位。




fig leaf：名詞，原指無花果葉，基督教聖經中的亞當與夏娃在發現自己裸體後即用無花果葉遮住自己的性器官，引申為指僅可蔽體之衣服，或指用來掩蓋尷尬問題 的事物，如Are the peace talks simply providing a fig leaf for the continuing aggression between the two countries?（和談是否只是為了掩飾這兩國之間的持續衝突？）


laurel (lôr'əl, lŏr'-)
n.

1. A Mediterranean evergreen tree (Laurus nobilis) having aromatic, simple leaves and small blackish berries. Also called bay, bay laurel, Also called sweet bay.
2. A shrub or tree, such as the mountain laurel, having a similar aroma or leaf shape.
3. 1. A wreath of laurel conferred as a mark of honor in ancient times upon poets, heroes, and victors in athletic contests. Often used in the plural.
   2. Honor and glory won for great achievement. Often used in the plural.

tr.v., -reled, also -relled, -rel·ing, -rel·ling, -rels, -rels.

1. To crown with laurel.
2. To honor, especially with an award or a prize.

idiom:
rest on (one's) laurels

1. To rely on one's past achievements instead of working to maintain or advance one's status or reputation.

[Middle English, from Old French laureole, from Latin laureola, diminutive of laurea, laurel tree. See laureate.]

look to one's laurels Protect one's preeminent reputation or position, especially against a threat of being surpassed.

laurel[lau・rel]

• 発音記号[lɔ'ːrəl | lɔ'r-]

[名]

1 [U][C]ゲッケイジュ（月桂樹）.

2 [U][C]1に似た葉をもつ木の総称（アメリカシャクナゲなど）.

3 ((集合的に単数・複数扱い))月桂樹の枝［冠］；（勝利・栄誉の象徴としての）月桂樹の葉飾り, 月桂冠.

4 ((通例〜s))栄誉, 名誉(honor)

win laurels
栄誉を得る, 賞賛を博す

look to one's laurels
（ライバルとの競争で）名誉を失わないように気をつける；油断なく気を遣う

rest ［sit］ on one's laurels
今までの実績に満足してあぐらをかいている.

━━[動]（〜ed, 〜・ing or((英))〜led, 〜・ling）(他)

1 …を月桂冠で飾る.

2 …に栄誉［名誉］を与える.

［古フランス語lorier（lor月桂樹＋-ier -ER²＝月桂樹の木）］

undeterred

/ʌndɪˈtəːd/

Learn to pronounce

adjective

1. persevering with something despite setbacks.

   "he was undeterred by these disasters"

Rest on one's laurels

Meaning

To be satisfied with one's past success and to consider further effort unnecessary.

Origin

The laurels that are being referred to when someone is said to 'rest on his laurels' are the aromatically scented Laurus Nobilis trees or, more specifically, their leaves. The trees are known colloquially as Sweet Bay and are commonly grown as culinary or ornamental plants.

The origins of the phrase lie in ancient Greece, where laurel wreaths were symbols of victory and status. Of course, ancient Greece is where history and mythology were frequently mixed, so we need to tread carefully. The pre-Christian Greeks associated their god Apollo with laurel - that much is historical fact, as this image of Apollo wearing a laurel wreath on a 2nd century BC coin indicates. The reason for that association takes us into the myth of Apollo's love for the nymph Daphne, who turned into a Bay tree just as Apollo approached her (anything could happen if you were a Greek god). Undeterred, Apollo embraced the tree, cut off a branch to wear as a wreath and declared the plant sacred. Their belief in the myth caused the Greeks to present laurel wreaths to winners in the Pythian Games, which were held at Delphi in honour of Apollo every four years from the 6th century BC.

Following the decline of the Greek Empire, the use of wreaths of laurel as emblems of victory seems to have taken a long holiday and didn't re-emerge until the Middle Ages. Geoffrey Chaucer referred to laurels in that context in The Knight's Tale, circa 1385:

With laurer corouned as a conquerour
And there he lyueth in ioye and in honour .

[With laurel crowned as conqueror
There he lived in joy and honour]

A 'laureate' was originally a person crowned with a laurel wreath. We continue to call those who are especially honoured laureates although the laurel leaves are usually kept for the kitchen these days. Nevertheless, laureates benefit in other ways; Nobel Laureates get a nice medal and 10 million Swedish Krona and Poets Laureate (in the UK at least) get a useful salary and a butt of sack (barrel of sherry).

As to the phrase's meaning, to 'rest on one's laurels' isn't considered at all a praiseworthy strategy - it suggests a decline into laziness and lack of application. That's not the original meaning. When 'rest on one's laurels' or, as it was initially, 'repose on one's laurels' was coined it was invariably part of a valedictory speech for some old soldier or retiring official. An early example of that usage is found inThe Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, 1723:

The Duke [of Orleans] was old enough to take his Repose under the Shadow of his Laurels.

Of course, the 'repose' was figurative - no one was imagining someone sleeping on a bed of laurel leaves, although the citation above could be construed as referring to laurel trees rather than laurel wreaths. No such doubts with a slightly later citation from the London-based Gentleman's Magazine, 1733, on the retirement of a schoolmaster of Westminster School:

So thou, paternal Sage, may'st now repose.
Nor seek new Laurels to adorn thy Brows.

As soon as we move into the energetic Victorian era, the meaning changes and the phrase is used with a distinctly disapproving tone. Victoria had barely gained the throne when we find this piece in the review magazine The Literary Chronicle, 1825, which praises the work of Maria Edgeworth:

We do not affect to wish she should repose on her laurels and rest satisfied; on the contrary, we believe that genius is inexhaustible... For Miss Edgeworth there must be no rest on this side the grave.

Tough audience the Victorians. We are hardly any more charitable these days. 'One-hit wonders' are sneered at and, with proper Anglo-Saxon earnestness, Anthony Burgess dismissed his fellow author Joseph Heller's inability to write a second book for 13 years following the success of Catch-22 by sniping that "Heller suffers from that fashionable American disease, writer's block".

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