迷你对话:
A:That is awfully bad. There is no water.
太早了,停水了。
B:We have some bottles of mineral water tofall back on.
咱们还有几瓶矿泉水,必要时可以使用。
A:Thank you for your consideration.
对亏你细心。
地道表达:
fall back on:别无选择,只得使用
解词释义:
fall back on的本义是“有困难时求助于某人”或“依赖于”。但是它还有“退却”的意思。因此,在一些非正规场合的口语表达中,fall back on有时候转意为“退一步讲”,并引申为“别无选择,只得使用”。
支持范例:
Eg. At least we can fall back on candles if the electricity fails.
停电时我们至少可以使用蜡烛.
Eg. We had to fall back on the notes collected by students during the course of his lectures.
我们只好求助于学生们在他讲课时所记的笔记。
He hides money in the mattress so he can have something to fall back on .
他把钱藏在床垫里,以资有些东西作为靠山。
If these new methods don't work, we'll have to fall back on(upon)our old system.
如果这些新方法行不通,我们就得依靠我们那套老办法了。