Wiktionary英語版
出典：Wiktionary
tar baby
出典:『Wiktionary』 (2026/04/27 19:55 UTC 版)
語源
Referring to a doll made of tar and turpentine to entrap Br'er Rabbit in one of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories, published in 1881, from earlier African American folklore, from earlier African (e.g. Kongo) folklore, influenced in America by similar stories from various unrelated Native American tribes, such as the Cherokee, Alabama, Koasati, and Apache. (Similar stories are found throughout the world, e.g. among the Mixtec and Zapotec.)
名詞
- (chiefly US) A difficult, abstract problem that worsens as one attempts to handle it; a sticky situation, especially one where attempts to make it better only make it worse.
- 2006, Mitt Romney, quoted in "Romney apologizes for calling Big Dig 'tar baby'", July 31, 2006, WISTV.com
- Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is apologizing for referring to the troubled Big Dig construction project as a "tar baby." / Romney made the comment during a speech at a fund-raiser with Iowa Republicans on Saturday. Romney told the crowd "The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar baby as I can."
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2001, Bobby Delaughter, Never Too Late: A Prosecutor's Story of Justice in the Medgar Evars Case, page 75:
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If Dees had indicated any willingness to personally pursue the case, Ed would've immediately had him appointed as a special prosecutor and turned this tar baby of a case over to him on the spot.
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- 2006, Mitt Romney, quoted in "Romney apologizes for calling Big Dig 'tar baby'", July 31, 2006, WISTV.com
- (slang, derogatory, ethnic slur) A black person.
参照
- “tar baby”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Further reading
- ^ Jonathan Brennan, When Brer Rabbit Meets Coyote: African-Native American Literature (2003), pages 72, 107-109, 134
- ^ Richard Erdoes, Alfonso Ortiz, eds, American Indian Myths and Legends (1984), pp. 359–361
- ^ Enrique Margery: "The Tar-Baby Motif", in the Latin American Indian Literatures Journal, volume 6 (1990), p. 9
- ^ Anne Dyk, ed., "Tarbaby", in Mixteco texts (1959), pp. 33–44, (Linguistic Series 3, SIL)
- ^ Carol Stubblefield, Morris Stubblefield, compilers, "Rabbit and Coyote", in Mitla Zapotec texts (1994), pp. 61–102, (Folklore texts in Mexican Indian languages no. 3, Amerindian Series 12, SIL)
tarbaby
語源
tar + baby, from African American folklore, popularized by the tale of Br'er Rabbit in the Uncle Remus stories (1881) of Joel Chandler Harris, originally from Cherokee folklore (a tar baby story was published in the Cherokee Advocate, 1845).
名詞
tarbaby (複数形 tarbabies)
- A difficult or "sticky" situation, especially one where peoples' attempts to make it better only make it worse
- 1898, Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings:
- ...en de Tar-Baby, she keep on sayin' nothin', twel present'y Brer Rabbit draw back wid his fis', he did, en blip he tuck 'er side er de head. Right dar's whar he broke his merlasses jug. His fis' stuck, en he can't pull loose. De tar hilt 'im. But Tar-Baby, she stay still...
"'Ef you don't lemme loose, I'll knock you agin," sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, en wid dat he fotch 'er a wipe wid de udder han', en dat stuck. Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nothin'...
" 'Tu'n me loose, fo' I kick de natal stuffin' outen you,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, but de Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nothin'. She des hilt on, en den Brer Rabbit lose de use er his feet in de same way. Brer Fox, he lay low. Den Brer Rabbit squall out dat ef de Tar-Baby don't tu'n 'im loose he butt 'er cranksided. En den he butted, en his head got stuck...
"Who ax you fer ter come en strike up a 'quaintance wid dish yer Tar-Baby? En who stuck you up dar whar you iz? Nobody in de roun' worril. You des tuck en jam yo'se'f on dat Tar-Baby widout waitin' fer enny invite," sez Brer Fox, "en dar you is, en dar you'll stay..."
- 2000, Anthony Lake, The Tar Baby Option: American Policy toward Southern Rhodesia[1], →ISBN:
- It is important to emphasize the basic difference between "tar baby" and the previous American approach to southern Africa. As defended by Morris and its other creators, the new approach was designed to assist peaceful change in the area. The danger was that if it failed to meet its purpose, the new policy would simply provide a thin excuse for normalization of relations with the white regimes.
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