ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

敷衍, 草率, 馬虎 , 掛在嘴上說說 - 每日一辭(英)  

敷衍了事,草率做事

Meaning:A superficial effort made without care or enthusiasm

For Example:

We just skimp through our work, so as to be done with it.

We just skip through our work, so as to be done with it.

It is not a good work ethic to skimp on effort of what’s assigned to you.

Doing your job superficially or perfunctorily is not a good work ethic.

I don’t have much time to clean the house, so I just give the floor a lick and a promise.

敷衍, 草率, 馬虎

It is well known that politicians pay only cursory attention to the voters’ need.

Politicians are masters of false listening. When campaigning, they would always pretend to listen to the concerns of the voters but without any intention to carry out their promises.

Ma’s perfunctory attitude comes from his apathetic (麻木不仁), ignorant (無知)and indifferent (冷漠, 漠視) personality. How can you expect him to be able to listen to his people’s need? He has neither feeling for nor interest in how they suffer or what they need.

The work performed is really shoddy (粗製濫造).

It is hard to find a word or phrase in English that closely match the meaning of 敷衍 in Chinese. Different words/phrases are used depending on the situation and they can mean different things when used in a different situation.

For example:

Pay lip service (掛在嘴上說說)

Government usually pays lip service to carrying out promises they made during campaign.

Brush off

= To ignore (忽視), to disregard (漠視),

I have proof that this is a conspiracy. Don’t brush me off like I am a Moran.

Brush somebody/something aside

= To reject (駁回) ; to dismiss (駁斥)

I have proof that this is a conspiracy. Don’t brush me aside like I am a Moran.

He thought that the entire proposal was pure nonsense and quickly brushed it aside.

Written by Elisa English

On August 10th, 2013