特首林鄭說逃犯條例修訂已經壽終正寢。
壽終正寢，英文可以怎樣翻譯？昨晚想起這個話題時，助手提醒我蕭叔叔英式英文學會 Uncle Siu's British English Club已經講過，可以翻譯作as dead as a dodo，這個翻譯當然沒問題，杜杜鳥是我們相當肯定已經絕種的生物，其實也有另一個頗有文藝典故的翻譯方法，可以翻譯作as dead as a doornail（死得和一根門釘一樣），這個習語相當有名，莎士比亞（William Shakespeare）早在16世紀已經用過，後來更被英國作家狄更斯（Charles Dickens）發揚光大，在著名的短篇小說A Christmas Carol 《聖誕頌歌》裏用過：
「Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail.」
如此一句習語，由500年前開始被使用，保留著完全一樣的意思，被沿用至今，實在不簡單。
圖：Stand News 立場新聞
