Lost or missing?
英语表达“丢失了”是lost还是missing?到底哪个更确切,这个问题有时让人困惑。
一般说来,lost和missing 是同义词,可以互相替代,例如:
The book is lost/missing.(书不见了。)
注意人“丢失了”(迷路了)总是用lost。
重要点:(1)当强调东西原来还在,现在丢失了用missing,例如:
The document was on the table. Now it’s missing.(资料不见了。)
如果表达丢失了,仍然在找用missing :
We’re looking for it everywhere. But the computer is still missing.
(2)当强调一个东西找不到时,用lost更合适,特别是下面的例子中:
It’s lost forever.(它永远丢失了。)
再看下面例子:
If the sender fails to receive an acknowledgment within a TTL time, he/she will decide that the message is lost, and will send it once again.(如果发送者在TTL时间内没收到回执,它就判定信息丢失了,会再发一次。)
这里是表达判定的结果,语气强,用lost比missing 更好,当然用missing 也不是绝对不可以。
By the way,动词lose与miss的用法比较好区分,一个是失去,一个是错过,例如:
You lost the opportunity to study abroad.(你失去了出国学习的机会。)
You missed the opportunity to study abroad.(你错过……)意味未来可能还有机会。
(例句原创)