simple&Life

圣诞前的那个礼拜，实验室的Kevin一直没有show up, 连我们庆祝实验室的Postdoc荣升Research Associate Prof. 的午餐也没有来，更没有收到他任何身体不适的email，于是大家觉得有些奇怪。David就笑着说: “He must be playing hooky.” 意思是他没有请假，没得到老板的同意就擅自不来学校。其实之前我腿扭伤在床上躺了一个多礼拜，也没有和老板正式请假，也算是“played hooky”。Hooky字面上的意思是“多钩的”，来自于它的名词”Hook”. 发Hook这个词音的时候要小心干脆，不要后面拖一个“呃(er)”，否则就完全是另一个不怎么礼貌的词。不过查了一下Answers.com，“Hooky”直接就有“An unexcused absence” 的意思，看来“play hooky”这个词还是挺常用。这也难怪，小孩子喜欢逃学也不是什么少见的事。

来自Freedictionary的解释：

to stay away from school without permission. Any kid who’s not in school at this time of day must be playing hooky.

Usage notes: sometimes refers to staying away from a job or avoiding a duty: I decided to play hooky from work so I could go to the ballgame.

UsingEnglish上面有类似的解释，不过更强调了”Play Hooky”所代表的逃学通常是没有什么正当理由的逃学：

If people play hooky, they don’t attend school when they should and don’t have a valid reason for their absence.

Phrases.org.uk关于这个短语的来源，看一下也挺有趣：

PLAY HOOKY – “There is no widely accepted explanation for the word ‘hookey’ or ‘hooky.’ An Americanism that arose in the late 19th century, when compulsory attendance laws became the rule in public schools, ‘hooky’ may be a compression of the older expression ‘hook it,’ ‘to escape or make off,’ formed by dropping the ‘t’ in the phrase. Or it could be related to the old slang word ‘hook,’ meaning ‘to steal,’: kids stealing a day off from school. ‘Hooky’ has so often been associated with going fishing that it may even owe its life to ‘getting off the hook’ the way a fish can; anyway, school is often insufferable as a hook to schoolchildren and many kids squirming in their seats all day look like they are on a hook.” From “Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins” by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

(Note: in the U.S. “public schools” are run by government.)

Another expression for “playing hooky” or “playing sick” — “taking a mental health day.”

把小孩子逃离学校比作鱼儿从钩子脱钩，的确够形象:)