6 Best foot forward 伸最好的那只脚（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.

如果你想要给人留下一个好印象，也就是说你需要“展示最好的一面”。对于这个词的来历有很多个观点，其中的一个是：人们觉得左脚是恶魔、邪恶和不幸的领域。毕竟在拉丁语中“邪恶”这个词也意味着“左侧”，所以在英语中这个词还保持着它不幸的含义。所以，人们建议把左脚放在后面，而第一个伸最好的，右脚。

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.

但是这个词好像来自时尚界，而不是民间。这个词可以追溯到男性虚荣心尤其明显的18世纪末期，那是个花花公子的时代。他用奇怪和巧妙的形式来吸引人们的注意力和赞赏。在当时，人们想象他们的两条腿在形状上是不同的，“正常的”一条比另一条要更适宜。为了使它引人注意，人们把不好的那条腿放在后面，字面上来说就是把“他们的好脚放在了前面”，当然并上这条腿。