6 Best foot forward 伸最好的那只腳（展示最好的一面）

When you are trying to make a good impression it is said that you should put your ‘best foot forward’. There are many options as to where this phrase came from, one being that it was believed that ‘the left’ was the realm of the devil, of evil and misfortune. After all the Latin word sinister means left, and in English sinister has kept its ominous meaning. Hence, it was advisable to keep the left foot behind and step forward with the best, the right, foot first.

如果你想要給人留下一個好印象，也就是說你需要“展示最好的一面”。對于這個詞的來歷有很多個觀點，其中的一個是：人們覺得左腳是惡魔、邪惡和不幸的領域。畢竟在拉丁語中“邪惡”這個詞也意味著“左側”，所以在英語中這個詞還保持著它不幸的含義。所以，人們建議把左腳放在后面，而第一個伸最好的，右腳。

But this phrase seems to have come from the fashion world, rather than the occult. The saying can be traced to male vanity, particularly apparent in the late eighteenth century, the period of the dandy. His desire to attract people’s attention and admiration took strange and elaborate forms. At the time, people imagined that their two legs differed in shape and that ‘normally’ one was more becoming than the other. To draw attention to it they kept the worse one in the background, literally putting ‘their best foot forward’, and with it, of course, their leg.

但是這個詞好像來自時尚界，而不是民間。這個詞可以追溯到男性虛榮心尤其明顯的18世紀末期，那是個花花公子的時代。他用奇怪和巧妙的形式來吸引人們的注意力和贊賞。在當時，人們想象他們的兩條腿在形狀上是不同的，“正常的”一條比另一條要更適宜。為了使它引人注意，人們把不好的那條腿放在后面，字面上來說就是把“他們的好腳放在了前面”，當然并上這條腿。