damn with faint praise

【英文解釋】express disapproval by praising inadequately

【中文解釋】名褒實(shí)貶，用輕微的贊揚(yáng)進(jìn)行貶低

【短語來源】A quotation from Alexander Pope's critical portrait of Joseph Addison in lines 201-2 of Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot(1735):'Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,/ And without sneering teach the rest to sneer.' A similar form of words had appeared earlier in one of the works of William Wycherley, who knew and was later edited(and plagiarised?)by Pope:'And with faint praises one another damn.'

亞歷山大 蒲柏（Alexander Pope）大家聽過咩？他被稱為18世紀(jì)英國最偉大的詩人，他的許多詞句寫得工整、精練、富有哲理性，有些詩行幾乎成為格言。
damn with faint praise這個短語就是出自他的一首詩《致阿巴思諾醫(yī)生書》（Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot）。在這首詩的201-2行他寫下):'Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,/ And without sneering teach the rest to sneer.' 諷刺身居高位，逍遙法外的道德敗壞者。
其實(shí)跟這個短語類似的句子最早見于英國劇作家威廉·威徹利的作品，原句是這樣的：'And with faint praises one another damn.'蒲柏進(jìn)行了改造，就變成damn with faint praise啦。
這位文學(xué)大師果然造就了經(jīng)典名言啊。

【有例有句】Don't be so glad, he is just damning with faint praise.

別太高興了，他只不過是話里有話，在貶低你呢。