sandwich：不愿停下来的伯爵
People have been putting food between slices of bread for thousands of years. But the name we use for it today comes from an English nobleman who lived in the 1700s: John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich.
According to the most famous version of the story, the Earl loved gambling. He was said to sit at the card table for hours at a time, refusing to stop even for a proper meal. Instead, he asked his servants to bring him some meat between two pieces of bread. That way, he could eat with one hand, keep playing with the other, and not get grease on his cards. Before long, other people started ordering "the same as Sandwich", and the name stuck.
The story first appeared in a travel book written by a Frenchman who visited London in the 1760s. Some historians think it isn't quite fair to the Earl. He was a busy politician who later ran the British navy, and they suggest he probably ate his sandwiches at his desk while he was working, not at a card table. Either way, it seems he was a man who didn't like to stop what he was doing just to eat.
The name itself comes from a small town in the south-east of England called Sandwich. In Old English, it meant something like "sandy harbour" or "sandy town".
So when you grab a quick sandwich for lunch at your desk, you're following a very old tradition.
人们把食物夹在面包片中间吃，已经有几千年的历史了。可我们今天用来称呼它的名字，来自 18 世纪的一位英国贵族：第四代三明治伯爵约翰·蒙塔古。
按照最出名的说法，这位伯爵非常爱赌博。据说他能在牌桌前一坐就是好几个小时，连正经吃顿饭都不肯停下来。他让仆人把一些肉夹在两片面包中间给他送来。这样，他就能一只手拿着吃，另一只手继续打牌，还不会把油弄到牌上。没过多久，别人也开始点“和三明治伯爵一样的”，这个名字就这样流传了下来。
这个故事最早出现在一位 18 世纪 60 年代到访伦敦的法国人写的游记里。有些历史学家认为，这么说对伯爵不太公平。他是个忙碌的政治家，后来还主管英国海军，所以他们认为，他更可能是一边在办公桌前工作，一边吃三明治，而不是在牌桌上。不管是哪种说法，他似乎都是个不愿意为了吃饭而停下手头事情的人。
而“Sandwich”这个名字本身，来自英格兰东南部的一个小镇。在古英语里，它的意思大概是“多沙的港口”或者“多沙的小镇”。
所以，当你在办公桌前随手拿个三明治当午饭时，你其实是在延续一个非常古老的传统。