贴子重发声明 原作者：Yeti， 发贴时间 2005-7-18 6:14:24 原贴地址： 雨巷宝岛英语园地 Page 9 第 81 楼 “Interesting Words and Phrases" Item #51 http://www.rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?boardID=11&ID=9224&star=9&page=1 [原创] 51. Coming in on a wing and a prayer.
This expression originated from the Second World War. Badly damaged aircraft trying to make it home is said to be coming in "on a wing and a prayer." The phrase, used to describe a desperate situation in which you are relying only hope to see you through, has since become mainstream English. (In other words "a forlorn hope situation." ) I was reminded by this expression yesterday when I watched the TV program "On a Wing and Prayer." It was about an Airbus (belonging to Transat Airline), while flying over the Atlantic, experienced a fuel leak. All power was lost and the engines went dead. The pilot tried to glide the plane through hundreds of miles of air space to land, without braking power, on a tiny island with a military airstripe. It was a happy ending as no one was killed or even severely injured. The pilot was lauded at that time as a hero. But years later, after the investigation was complete, he was reprimanded for taking the wrong measure when one of the gauges on the plane showed one of the fuel tanks to be empty. Not realizing that the fuel line had ruptured, he diverted fuel from the other wing, thus rapidly losing all the fuel he had. (The correct decision would have been to fly only with one engine.) Today, I made a search for the origin of the phrase and found one site claiming it to have come from a WW II song: (引， 出自) Source of the quote below: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ona2.htm

... it comes from a famous American World War Two patriotic song, with words by Harold Adamson and music by Jimmy McHugh. It tells the tale of a plane struggling home after a bombing raid:

Comin’ in on a wing and a prayer
What a show, what a fight
Boys, we really hit our target for tonight
How we sing as we limp through the air
Look below, there’s our field over there
Though there’s one motor gone
We can still carry on
Comin’ in on a wing and a prayer.

The song came out at the end of 1942 and instantly became a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic, so much so that the phrase almost immediately entered the language.

Examples of usage: (Source (引， 出自) : https://msn.match.com/msn/article.aspx?articleid=4324&menuid=8&lid=429 ) The clarity you get from understanding the connection in your life between forms and feelings will help you focus your energies on meeting and dating women who are right for you, rather than wasting time on those who aren’t. This way, you can up the odds of finding the woman of your dreams without relying on a wing and a prayer. Source (引， 出自): http://was4.hewitt.com/hewitt/ap/resource/rptspubs/hewittquart/HQ_12/articles/think_about_gs.html So rather than simply relying on a wing and a prayer, you should ensure your company carries out strategic due diligence with a cost-benefit analysis and a financial return-on-investment analysis before giving a green light. (Yeti's note: "due diligence" means careful investigation, a term use in law and business, especially in the investment community, to indicate the necessity to investigate fully the propsect of a company, or its claims.)

Click on picture to enlarge. Source: http://www.umkc.edu/lib/spec-col/ww2/WarNews/comin-in.htm

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