My comments: In apprenticeship of yesteryear, young apprentices were asked to run errands – do the little things – for the old master before they were good enough to be allowed to work on their own. And one of the little things they did apparently was hold the candle (show the light) for the master at work in the evening. Therefore, figuratively speaking, if you hold a candle to someone, that someone is superior; if you can not even hold a candle to them, then there’s no way you can even compare with them. In other words, they’re so much better than you. In the above example, therefore, nobody “can hold a candle to him” means Jordan is deemed better than anyone else. Still in other words, Air Jordan is in a class of his own. His Airness, as a matter of fact, won six championships for Chicago, not “four”. Related stories: Lower 48 states 本文僅代表作者本人觀點(diǎn),與本網(wǎng)立場無關(guān)。歡迎大家討論學(xué)術(shù)問題,尊重他人,禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。 About the author:Zhang Xin has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column. |
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