"the quick and the dead". I must cut my way through the dead stuff, ...until I touch the quick of the theme.

 大學時代主要的打工機會是勞作室或圖書館。

東海大學的圖書館很特別，或許是外國的捐贈，竟然將 牛津大字典 Oxford  O. E. D. 上架當書。我從此對英文的文字研究"很敬畏"。

直至2025年的今天，我讀到"I must cut my way through the dead stuff, ...until I touch  the quick of the theme." 

查quick的字源：" Old English cwic(u) 'alive', from Germanic." (簡明牛津字典)

"the quick and the dead". I must cut my way through the dead stuff, ...until I touch  the quick of the theme. 

Quick: Read This!

Blink and you might miss this etymology lesson

The first people to use the word quick did not have speed in mind at all.

The phrase "the quick and the dead" gives a clue about what they meant. This phrase is from the Bible's New Testament, where the Day of Judgment is described as the time when Jesus will return from heaven to judge everyone, both the quick and the dead, determining who will have eternal life and who will be damned. (The phrase has also been used as the name of various books and movies.) It's clear who "the dead" are. "The quick," meanwhile, is everyone else. That's right: quick originally meant "not dead"—that is, "living, alive."

快：讀讀這個！

一眨眼，你可能就錯過了這個字源課

最早使用「快」這個字的人根本就沒想過速度。

「活的和死的」這個短語暗示了他們的意思。這個短語出自《聖經·新約》，其中描述了審判日，耶穌將從天上歸來，審判所有人，包括活的和死的，決定誰將獲得永生，誰將遭受詛咒。 （這個短語也被用作各種書籍和電影的名稱。）「死的」指的是誰，這一點顯而易見。而「快的」指的是其他所有人。沒錯：“快”最初的意思是“未死的”，也就是“活著的，活著的”。