cotton-picking

英文词源


cotton-picking (adj.)
as a deprecatory term first recorded in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but a similar noun meaning "contemptible person" dates to around 1919, perhaps with racist overtones that have faded over the years. Before mechanization, cotton picking was the most difficult labor on a cotton plantation.
I drove out to a number of the farms near Denison and found many very young white children working all day in the hot sun picking and dragging sacks of cotton. In one field the labor corps consisted of one woman and six children, one of them 5 years, one 6 years, one 7 years, one 9 years, and two about 11. The father was plowing. The 5 and 6 year olds worked all day as did the rest. The 7-year-old said he picked 50 pounds a day and the 9 year old 75 pounds. (A good picker averages several hundred a day.) School begins late on account of the cotton picking, but the children nearly all prefer school to the picking. Picking hours are long, hot, and deadly monotonous. While the very young children seem to enjoy it, very soon their distaste for it grows into all-absorbing hatred for all work. ["Field Notes of Lewis W. Hine, Child-Labor Conditions in Texas," report to U.S. Congressional Commission on Industrial Relations, 1916]

双语例句


1. Some of the food crops failed. However, the cotton did quite well.
有些粮食作物歉收。但棉花的收成仍相当不错。

来自柯林斯例句

2. Because it was warm, David wore only a white cotton shirt.
因为天气暖和,戴维只穿了一件白色的棉衬衣。

来自柯林斯例句

3. Prices start at £13.95 a metre for printed cotton.
印花棉布以每米13.95英镑的价格起售。

来自柯林斯例句

4. He was wearing cotton pants and an open-necked shirt.
他穿着纯棉裤子和开领衬衫。

来自柯林斯例句

5. He wore brown corduroy pants and a white cotton shirt.
他身着棕色灯芯绒裤子和白色棉衬衫。

来自柯林斯例句

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