《汉英词典》“搬”条内有个用例:“搬起石头打自己的脚”其英语译文为“lift a rock only to drop it on one's own feet”，简直字字紧扣，堪称工整，是地道的直译。

但是精通汉语和英语的作家韩素音女士在其著作中却不采用这种直译式的表达法，而采取了英语中习惯的表达法——相当于由汉语意译过去的“hoist with one's own petard”，请看：

The Western Powers... now found themselves hoist with their own petard.

                                         —Han Suyin: The Mortal Flower, NY 1966, p.378

据Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 的注释，“hoist with one's own petard”乃是“made to suffer by some evil plan with which one had intended to harm others”（即“害人反害己”），较之汉语“搬起石头砸自己的脚”，则形象虽异而含义实同，不愧为可供采用的贴切的意译。

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