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in the street和on the street究竟有哪些区别？

魏剑峰 2021-07-07 20:07:12

最近有同学在微博上问了一个问题：in the street和on the street有什么区别？

这个问题回答起来并不简单，因为实际应用中可能会存在一些例外。国外英语学习论坛wordreference.com之前有人也提过一个相同的问题，其中一名美国网友给出了这样的解释：

"In the street" means literally that you are "in the middle of the street, standing on it, and waiting for a passing car to hit you.", while "on the street" can be used to describe buildings which face the street. i.e. "The factory was on Jackson Street." or a pedestrian who is walking down the street, but is on the sidewalk, not in the middle of the road.

帖子的链接是：

https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/preposition-in-the-street-on-the-street-at-the-street.176928/#:~:text=%22In%20the%20street%22%20means%20literally,buildings%20which%20face%20the%20street.

这两个表达之间的基本区别可以概括为：in the street强调“位于马路中间”，比如：The car almost hit him because he was in the street. 而on the street强调建筑物处在街道的两边，或者强调发生在街道边的活动，比如：My house was on Delaney Street.

《卫报》之前有这么一个句子：

An autonomous Uber car killed a woman in the street in Arizona, police said, in what appears to be the first reported fatal crash involving a self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian in the US.

（据警方消息，一辆自动驾驶的Uber汽车在亚利桑那州的街道上撞死了一名妇女，这可能是美国报道的第一起涉及自动驾驶汽车和行人的致命车祸。）

这里之所以用…killed a woman in the street而不用…killed a woman on the street，是因为这名妇女是在横穿马路的时候被车撞到的，用in the street可以强调她处于马路中间的状态。下文的报道也证实了这一点：

Tempe police said the self-driving car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and that the vehicle hit a woman, who was walking outside of the crosswalk and later died at a hospital.

（坦佩警方说，车祸发生时，自动驾驶汽车处于自动驾驶模式。车辆撞上了一名妇女，她当时正在人行横道外行走，后来在送医后死亡。）

关于on the street，《爱尔兰时报》（The Irish Times）的一篇文章也很好地说明了它的用法：

这篇文章的背景是都柏林的摩尔街将会增设四个市场摊位，文章小标题是：

Traders welcome the move but say trading conditions on the street remain intolerable

这里用的是on the street而不是in the street，是因为这些摊位都是设在沿街，交易也都是在街边完成的，用on the street能够强调这一点。正文也有两处类似的用法：

(1) While there are spaces for about 70 stalls on the street, fewer than 20 traders remain.

(2) Stephen Troy, who runs the oldest butcher’s shop on the street, said the council should stop relying on private developers to save Moore Street.

又比如这篇BBC这篇讲路边小吃的文章：

Buying food on the street is nothing new but in the UK this idea is really taking off. It's a great way of sampling freshly cooked dishes from around the world.

这里用on the street同样可以用来强调这些活动发生在路边。

不过在一些固定搭配中，in/on the street表达的意思是相同的，比如the man/woman in the street以及the man/woman on the street都可以用来表达“普通人，平民百姓”的意思。