時差N小時:雪上加霜 To Add Insult to Injury

Imagine a situation where a person has needlesslybeen injured by another. The injured person isnaturally hoping for some help. Instead, the cruelone who injured that person starts shouting terrible,insulting words. Thus, the victim has now beeninjured both physically and emotionally. It is a kindof double injury, making an already bad situationbecome worse.

想象一下，如果一個人毫無理由地被另一個人弄傷了。這個受傷的人自然希望得到一些幫助。但是恰恰相反，這個冷漠的人還向這個受傷的人大聲恐嚇，說一些侮辱性的話。結果，受害人身體上和心理上都受到了傷害。這是一種雙重傷害，使本已糟糕的情況變得更糟。

Now, to use this expression as an idiom, there has to be a situation in which something badcaused by another person becomes worse because of them. There need not be any actualphysical injury, and no one may actually be speaking insulting words. However, it is clearsomeone feels injured in some way, and that injury is being increased, not lessened. Forexample, if a friend breaks your favorite dish, that is a kind of first injury. If that friend thencriticizes you for having cheap, easily broken dishes, that is adding insult to injury.

這種表達方式作為一個成語來使用，是指某人在做出糟糕的事后把情況弄得更糟。在這種情況下，不一定造成什么身體傷害，也不一定有什么侮辱性的語言。但是，的確有人因某種方式受到了傷害，而且傷害非但沒有減少而且還加重了。例如，如果有朋友打翻了你最愛的碗碟，你會感到傷心。但是如果那個朋友接著諷刺你專買那些便宜的和容易破碎的碗碟，這對你而言可就是雪上加霜了。