圣誕將至，又到了送（or 收）禮物的季節了。在英語中，有時候把禮物稱為gift，有時則稱為present，這兩個單詞我們都不陌生，但你知道兩者之間有什么區別嗎？

The words come to us from different language families. Gift comes from the old Germanic root for “to give.” It referred to an act of giving, and then, to the thing being given. In Old English it meant the dowry given to a bride’s parents. Present comes from the French for "to present." A present is the thing presented or bestowed. They were both in use for the idea of something undergoing a transfer of possession without expectation of payment from the 13th century onward.
Gift和present來源于不同語系。Gift來自古日耳曼語，是“給予”的意思。原來指代“給”這個行為，后來就演變為“所給的東西”。在古英語中，Gift指的是給新娘父母的彩禮。而present來源于法語，意思是“遞交、獻上、贈送”的意思。A present就是所贈送或授予的東西。從13世紀開始，這兩個詞都表示的是，在不要求付款的前提下，一件東西的所有權發生了轉移。

The words gift and present are well-matched synonyms that mean essentially the same thing, but even well-matched synonyms have their own connotations and distinctive patterns of use.
在如今，gift和present是近義詞，本質上表達的都是同一個東西，但是即使意思再相近的近義詞，還是會有不同的詞義和用法。

Gift applies to a wider range of situations. Gifts can be talents. You can have the gift of gab, or a musical gift. Gifts can be intangibles. There is the gift of understanding or the gift of a quiet day.
Gift的用法更廣泛，它可以指天賦，比如說你生下來就能說會道（have the gift of gab），或者有音樂天賦（musical gift）。Gift可以指代無形的事物，比方說你的理解能力很好（gift of understanding），或者能夠度過平靜美好的一天，真是上天的恩賜?。╣ift of a quiet day）。

We generally don’t use present for things like this. Presents are more concrete. If your whole family gave donations to your college fund for your birthday would you say “I got a lot of presents”? It doesn’t exactly sound wrong, but since you never hold these donations in your hand, gifts seem to fit better.
Present通常不這么用。Present所表達的意思更具化。假如在你生日的時候，你們全家出錢承擔你的大學學費，這個時候你會說“我收到了好多present”嗎？聽起來也沒什么問題，但既然這些“禮物”不是切切實實拿在手里的，用gift就更合適一點。

Gift can also be an attributive noun, acting like an adjective to modify another noun. What do you call the type of shop where you can buy presents for people? A gift shop. What do you call the basket of presents that you can have sent to all your employees? A gift basket. Present doesn’t work well in this role of describing other nouns. We have gift boxes, gift cards, and gift wrap, not present boxes, present cards, and present wrap.
Gift還可以作定語名詞，去修飾另一個名詞。你會把禮品店稱作什么？A gift shop。給員工裝禮物的籃子叫什么呢？A gift basket。Present則不可以這樣去修飾另一個名詞。我們經常說的gift boxes（禮品盒），gift cards（禮品卡），和gift wrap（禮品包裝），但是不能把它們說成present boxes，present cards，和present wrap。

Gift appears to be more frequent than present, though it is difficult to get accurate counts, because if you compare occurrences of the noun present with the noun gift, you include that other noun present, meaning the here and now. However, the plural noun presents captures only the word we want. Gifts outnumbers presents in the Corpus of Contemporary American English by four to one.
Gift的使用比present要頻繁，不過要對此進行精確的計數比較難，因為當我們在比較名詞gift和名詞present出現的頻率時，會把present作為“當下”的意思也給算進去了。不過，present的復數形式presents就只有禮物的意思了。美國當代英語語料庫對此的研究發現，gift的使用頻率遠超present，比例達4:1。

英文來源：mentalfloss.com
翻譯&編輯：董靜