■ past (prep)

a) 表示否定（如此状况是暂时性的，现已被超过，不再如此了）。

• She always hid her eggs, though, so we never found ‘em ‘til (= them until) they were past being edible.但是她总是把她的鸡蛋藏起来，所以我们一直找不到，最后找到，鸡蛋都已经不能吃了（edible 状态不持久）。
• The stairs look like they were past being usable.楼梯的样子看来已经不能用了（usable 状态不持久）。
• They were past being polite.他们不再客气了（polite 状态不持久）。
• We all thought we were past having children die because of bacterial infections. Well, we are not.我们大家原先都以为我们的孩子不再会因为细菌感染而死去了。其实并非如此。
• In way of encouragement, I'd like to share a couple of recent acquisitions that many people would have thought were past being useful.作为抛砖引玉，我要介绍一下近期收罗到的一些许多人曾以为已经无用的物品。
• Three weeks before she died, she was past being bitter. But she was still angry she hadn't been told what would happen.她去世前三个礼拜就已经不再抱恨了。但是她对于人家为什么不把将要发生什么事情告诉她，仍然很生气。
• After meeting I grew worse and worse; my feelings were past being described by the human tongue. (Oliver B. Huntington, Autobiography)会面之后，我的情况越来越糟；我的心情已非人类语言所能形容。
• I realized that I was past being excited by anything.我认识到，什么事情都不会使我激动了。
• I thought I had seen it all, or at least enough that I was past being shocked. When I returned to school, I found I was wrong.我当时以为，自己什么都见过了，起码是见够了，再也不会震惊了。但是我一回到学校，就发现自己错了。
• He was past being angry, but the hurt was still there.他不再生气了，但是伤痕仍在。
• There were entrepreneurs who leased machines on a fairly large scale, and men who would spend a lifetime's savings on a single machine which they would rely on as a source of income when they were past being able to perform heavier work.有些商家，相当大规模地出租机器，也有些人，到了体力无法干重活的时候，宁可把一辈子的积蓄拿出来用在一件机器上，以此作为收入来源。
• But most of the stories the author has had to invent, because the people he writes about were past being able to tell him anything, and as a volunteer he had no access to official medical or family information.但是大多数故事是作者自己杜撰的，因为他所写的人物，已经不能再告诉他什么事情了，而他作为一个志愿者，又无从得到官方的医疗资讯或是家庭状况资讯。

有时候不单是“再也不”，而且还有“再也不能”的意思，不用再加 able。

• At seven o'clock he woke up and I could see that he was past being lulled back to sleep. So we went to the living room to greet mama.七点钟他醒了，我看到再也不能哄他睡了，于是我们就一起到大厅去向妈妈道个早安。
• In the most celebrated of all battles, that of Belle-Alliance, Buonaparte used his last reserve in an effort to retrieve a battle which was past being retrieved. He spent his last farthing, and then, as a beggar, abandoned both the battle-field and his crown. (Clausewitz, On War)在所有战役中最著名的佳盟之役当中，拿破仑动用了他最后的后备兵力去挽回一场无法挽回的战役。他用尽了最后一个铜板，然后像个叫化子一样，既放弃了战场，也放弃了皇冠。
• We soon realized that there was no word for "menopause" in Fijian, and that menopause was not an issue for these women. Once they stopped having periods, they went to the doctor to see if they were pregnant. When they were told that they were past being pregnant, they heaved a sigh of relief.我们很快就发现，斐济语没有“绝经”这个字眼，对于这些妇女来说，绝经不算是个问题。她们一停止月经，就去看大夫，问是不是自己怀孕了。大夫告诉她们说，她们已经不会怀孕，这一下子她们就如释重负，松一口气。
• The Japanese belief was that if they did not feed the sick men then they would be forced to get up and go to work. But the men could not be driven, they were past being driven, being too sick even to work for food, so many continued to die not only from their diseases but from starvation.日本人的想法是：对于病倒了的人，不给他们吃饭，就可以逼得他们不得不爬起来去干活。但是对他们逼也逼不了，他们已经无可再逼了，哪怕是干活有饭吃也干不了，于是就继续死好多人，不光是病死的，也是饿死的。

b) 表示肯定的“早已如此”（如此状况一经形成就不易改变，因而仍保持不否定）。

• The forested hills to the west reduced the local winds to a bare whisper, and the owner of Empire Builder was past being ready to go to sea, where the air was cooler and the breezes unrestricted. (Tom Clancy, Clear and Present Danger, p.5)西边郁郁葱葱的群山，挡住了当地的风，使之减弱到像是唧唧私语，“帝国建设者”号的船主，早就一切就绪，准备出海，海上的空气要来得凉爽一些，微风吹来吹去不受阻挡（ready 通常不会转变为不 ready）。
• Everyone was past being ready for bed.人人都早就准备就寝。

究竟“早就”早了多长时间？可以把时间的长度放在 past 前面。

• They were an hour past being ready to go.他们准备好出发已经有一个钟头了。
• These methods are long past being ready to be used in the US for the same purpose.这些方法早就可以拿到美国来用于同样的目的。
• By now, I was well past being ready for bed.一直到目前，我早就已经准备好上床睡觉。
• But I ate mine up, so as not to offend the host or my slave-driving stomach.“More!” it gurgled, though I was past being full.不过我还是把我自己的一份吃光，以免得罪主人，也不得罪我那副赶奴隶一样无情的肚皮。“不够，再来！”肚皮在咕噜，尽管我早就吃饱了。

c) 表示“保持已经达到的状态，但更进一步”。

• Now I was past being anxious and quickly becoming frightened.这时我何止是焦急，我很快就恐慌起来了。
• However, I didn't have to imagine it, because it—this exact circumstance—was right in front of me. But already it was past being just the thing itself; it had become the construction of memory in sentences.不过，我用不着对它加以想象，因为它，这个明明确确的情况，就摆在我的面前。但是它已经不光是它本身了；它已经成为用词句表达的回忆了（表示进一步）。
• The two travellers thought they were past being shocked by the brutality and senseless loss of life they had seen. But what happened later managed to shock them even further.两个旅客目睹这样残暴的行径和生命的无谓牺牲，本来已经够震惊的了，但是后来发生的事情，使他们更加震惊。
• My feet and hands were past being numb and pain began creeping up my legs.我不光是手脚麻木了，疼痛还开始沿着我的腿往上爬。
• She had in her grey eyes something that was past being haggard, and past being haunted, and past being contemptuous; an expression—if you might call it an expression, or the ghost of an expression—as if hope, love, terror, horror, remorse, hatred and ice-cold contempt for the world and all in it had all been there at one time, but years ago. (Henry Lawson, A Romance of Three Huts)她那双灰色的眼睛，有那么一种神情，说是憔悴又不只是憔悴，说是中邪又不只是中邪，说是傲慢又不只是傲慢，这种神情，也许可以叫做神情，也许又可以叫做神情的一个鬼影子，使人觉得仿佛曾经把希望、爱情、畏惧、恐怖、追悔、仇恨以及对人世和人世的一切的冷冰冰的蔑视，全都一古脑儿集中到了一起，但又是多年前的事（表示进一步）。

d) 表示“已经不光是”，但是实际意义只是加强语气。

• The guitar had been hanging on the wall so long the strings were past being dead.那个吉他挂在墙上那么久，琴弦都坏了。
• By the time I read the Congress for Cultural Freedom papers in the National Library in the late 1970s, I was past being shocked that they had taken CIA money.我 70 年代末期在国家图书馆看到文化自由大会的文件时，对于他们竟然拿了中央情报局的钱感到震惊。