兔子与篮球有什么共同点？“疯狂三月”

Before March fades too far from our memories, we wanted to follow up on a back story that appeared recently in the versions of our Morning Briefing in Asia and Europe.

在三月从我们的记忆里淡去之前，我们想对近期出现在我们早报亚洲版和欧洲版中的一篇幕后故事进行后续报道。

In it, we explained to our international audience the history of the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament, which acquired the nickname “March Madness” in the 1980s.

在那篇幕后故事中，我们对国际读者解释了NCAA(国家大学体育协会)篮球联赛的历史，该联赛在1980年代获得了“疯狂三月”的称号。

As it relates to basketball, March Madness can be traced to 1939, when it was used by the Illinois High School Association to describe a statewide high-school basketball tournament: “A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.”

“疯狂三月”与篮球的历史可追溯至1939年，当时伊利诺伊州高中联盟用它来描述一场全州范围内的高中篮球联赛：“一点点的三月疯狂可能会补充、促进人们保持头脑清醒，让社会保持在一个平衡的水平上。”

One of our erudite readers, however, pointed out that the link between March and madness is much older: The old English phrase “mad as a March hare” stretches back to the 1500s.

然而，我们一位最为博学之一的读者指出，三月与疯狂之间的关系要回溯到更为久远以前：古老的英语短语“mad as a March hare”(疯得像只三月的野兔)可追溯至1500年代。

The idiom, used to describe someone who is crazy or irrational, derives its meaning from the behavior of hares at the beginning of breeding season.

这个谚语被用来描述疯狂、不理性的人，意思源自于野兔在交配季节开始时的行为。

In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” from 1865, the March Hare famously attends the Mad Hatter’s tea party, before which Alice thinks: “The March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May, it won’t be raving mad — at least not so mad as it was in March.”

在刘易斯·卡罗尔(Lewis Carroll)1865年的《爱丽丝漫游奇境记》(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)中，三月野兔参加了疯帽子的茶会，这一事件十分著名，在这之前，爱丽丝想道：“三月野兔会是最有趣的，可能因为现在是五月，它不会疯狂到极点——至少不会像三月那么疯狂。”