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Surprising

“Surprising” 与 surprised 不同:surprised 描述“人感到惊讶”,surprising 描述“事物令人惊讶”。可作定语(a surprising result)或表语(The news is surprising)。

  1. “It is not surprising that sales rose after the discount.” (打折后销量上升并不令人意外。)
  2. “He gave a surprising answer to a simple question.” (他对一个简单问题给出了出人意料的回答。)
  3. “The movie had a surprising twist at the end.” (这部电影结尾有一个惊人的反转。)

与 surprise 同源:来自古法语名词 surprise,经英语动词 surprise(使吃惊)加 -ing 构成现在分词/形容词,表示“具有使人吃惊这一性质的”。

-ing 是典型的形容词化后缀,把动词 surprise 变为“令人……的”。surprise 本身宜作为整体词根记忆,不宜强行拆成现代可产的词缀。

新闻标题、书评、播客里常见 “surprising facts” “surprising study”,暗示内容与大众直觉相反。学术写作里也可用 surprisingly 作评注副词,语气比 shocking 中性。

  • 固定搭配: “hardly surprising” (几乎不足为奇), “surprising number of” (数量多得令人意外)
  • 副词: surprisingly(令人惊讶地;出人意料地)

surprised 是“人惊了”,surprising 是“事惊人”:词尾 -ing 常表示“令人……的”(interesting, boring 同理)。

“The small cafe served a surprising dessert: spicy chocolate cake that everyone loved.” (这家小咖啡馆上了一道令人惊喜的甜点:辣巧克力蛋糕,大家都喜欢。)