装死、装无辜

    看过电影“Ice Age” 的人一定知道possum是“负鼠”。Play possum是什么意思呢？请看对话：

    A: What’s up? You look angry.

    B: I was in the kitchen preparing dinner when a football crashed through the window and sent broken glass all over. When I went out and asked who did it, the children just played possum.

    Note: The saying “playing possum” comes from the tendency of the American opossum (which is not a true possum from Australia and the surrounding islands) to fall into a deathlike stupor when threatened. An animal that “plays possum” actually goes into a state of physiological suspension whereupon it appears to be quite dead. This is a defence mechanism to avoid being attacked by a predator, and is quite involuntary. To play possum means to “feign sleep or death,” or, to “pretend ignorance.”