花样say no，教你委婉拒绝

有时我们需要拒绝别人但no又很难说出口。事实上，英文中还有很多词可以用来表达否定的意思，让你say “no”不再重复。

1. No 不

Let’s start with the easy one. No dates to Old English.

让我们从简单的开始。No可以追溯到古英语。

2. uh-uh  啊；哼

The imitative uh-uh is first found in its written form in the 1920s.

书面形式的uh-uh在1920年代首次出现。

3. Nix 拒绝；不行

Originally Victorian slang, nix can be compared withthe earlier German nix, which is a colloquial shortened form of nichts (‘nothing’).

最初是维多利亚时代的俚语，与德语中的nix相近，是nichts(其含义为nothing“没什么”)的口语缩写形式的。

4. nixie / nixy / nixey  不

And it wasn’t long until this slang term was given a –y/-ie suffix, used to form pet names and familiar diminutives.

没多久，这个俚语添加了-y/-ie后缀，用来作宠物姓名和熟人的昵称。

5. nope 不

The earliest sense of nope was actually another name for the bullfinch, used in the early 17th century –but fast forward to the the late 19th century and nope is being used for no, with an apparently arbitrary extension, at around the same time that yep began being used for yes.

实际上，在17世纪早期，Nope最早的含义是红腹灰雀（bullfinch）的别名。但到19世纪末期时，nope被用来表达no的意思（不），相似地，大约在同一时间，yep开始被用于表达yes（是）的含义。

6. nay 不；拒绝

This form of no is particularly characteristic of Northern English. In origin it is a borrowing from early Scandinavian (cf. Icelandic nei). You could once also nick with nay –that is, ‘answer in the negative’.

Nay的使用是英国北部语言的特征。早期起源于北欧冰岛的nei。你可以用nay来表达否定的含义。

7. nah

A non-standard spelling of no, nah is often used when representing southern English pronunciation, particularly cockney speech

非标准拼写，常用作南方发音的代表，特别是伦敦音。

8. no way 决不；一点儿也不

Though decried as slang by some, no way (for ‘no’) has a long history, dating back at least as far as the 18th century.

有人认为这个表达只是俚语表达，但no way有很长的发展历史，可以追溯到18世纪以前。