人民教育出版社新修订的高一英语教材已经出版使用。在使用过程中,笔者发现了两个迷惑的问题:make fire和each other's face。这些表达法与笔者手头的词典相矛盾,好像教材错了。可是教材毕竟具有权威性,不会有这么明显的错误。老师不能回避这些问题,即使老师暂时回避了,学生也会提出来。因此,在教学时感到比较棘手。

　　make fire

　　On the island, Chuck has to learn to survive all alone. He has to learn how to collect water, hunt for food, and make fire.(SB 1, p.4)

　　一般的词典都为:make a fire(生火),而且是用粗体词排印的,说明是固定词组。笔者查阅了英国国家语料库(British National Corpus,简称BNC)的"简单检索"(Simple Search)(网址: thetis.bl.uk/lookup.html )。查阅make a fire,查到14个句子,现举其中的几个例句如下:

　　ADY 1572 Make a fire with lots of hot embers.

　　ALH 2544 He did not make a fire tonight, nor eat any supper.

　　FUB 534 However he looked after his animals with great care, brushing and combing them every evening, giving them the same food as he had himself, and chopping wood to make a fire so that they should be warm at night.

　　GW8 1873 He found wood to make a fire, and prepared breakfast.

　　HDB 141 Placed in front of us was a large pole, inside the pole was a fuel which we would be able to make a fire with.

　　JY8 961 But knowing how to make a fire might just save your life one day, so you'd better watch me carefully in case you have to do this yourself.

　　JY8 1336 Why did you pretend not to know how to make a fire, if the outdoors is no novelty to you。

　　查阅make fire,查到5个句子。

　　CAC 2094 In a thunderous rage, she sent rain to the earth to extinguish Maui's fires; however, the man managed to hide Mafulke's two thumbs from the deluge, and ever since, man has been able to make fire by rubbing two squat sticks together.

　　CDV 1111 Around him cluster characters who are immortal, like Elrond or Legolas, who can make fire or ride on eagles, while he himself can summon the dead.

　　G1Y 1474 Johnson: Sir, a man cannot make fire but in proportion as he has fuel.

　　KRO 1510 Year and year since I used to get up make fire for Alice in the mornings, this is, must be ten or twelve year since, and light a cig up.

　　可见,make a fire与make fire都是正确的英语,make a fire常用,make fire少用。

　　each other's face

　　Now, the water, which was cold as ice and flowed faster than a river, was above her knees. Jeff and Flora looked into each other's face with a look of fright.(SB1, p.25)

　　《美国传统词典》在each other词条的usage中有两个例句:

　　1.The boys wore each other's coats.

　　2.They had forgotten one another's names.

　　笔者同样查阅了British National Corpus,查到了这样一个句子。

　　JY1 1394 Aware, as she most certainly was, that she could not be pleased to see him...,grief, if past experience was anything to go by, they'd no doubt be going for each other's throats before the meal was half over..., Leith returned to the kitchen and prepared some salad.

　　可见,each other's和one another's后既可用单数名词也可用复数名词。

　　(文/吕铁雄；《英语辅导报》高中教师版03~04学年度第26期；版权归英语辅导报社所有，独家网络合作伙伴新浪教育，未经许可，不得以任何形式进行转载。)