熱詞解析(1) -- Gofer

A book written by Cliff Sims, who once worked in the Trump White House, was much in the news last week, after the president said some uncomplimentary things about it. In particular, Trump’s use of?gofer?attracted attention.

前白宮工作人員Cliff Sims出版的一本書，近日上了諸多頭條，尤其是在Trump本人對其發表了一些看法之后，其中gofer一詞更是博得大量關注。

Predictably, after the White House declined to comment on the book, Trump himself lashed out at Sims over Twitter on Tuesday morning, writing, “A low level staffer that I hardly knew named Cliff Sims wrote yet another boring book based on made up stories and fiction. He pretended to be an insider when in fact he was nothing more than a gofer. He signed a non-disclosure agreement. He is a mess!”

— Isaac Chotiner,?The New Yorker?(newyorker.com), 29 Jan. 2019

可以想見，白宮拒絕對此書發表評論，Trump只能轉而在推特上對Sims發起攻擊，他寫道，“一個我都不認識的叫Cliff Sims的低水平職員又胡編亂造了一本無聊的書。 他假裝是一名內幕人士，事實上他只不過是個跑腿的。 他簽署了保密協議。 他是一個**！”

Gofer?is defined as “a?lackey; an employee whose duties include running errands.” It has an etymology that is pleasingly self-explanatory; the word is an alteration of “go for.” The variants?gopher?and?go-fer?are occasionally found, but?gofer?is the most common form.

Gofer就是“走狗，奴才，跑腿的人”的意思，從構詞法上就可以看出，它實際上就是"go for"的變體，有時也寫做gopher 或 go-fer。