I was reading this article from the Associated Press about the Kenyan runner Sabastian Sawe’s incredible feat of breaking the 2 hours barrier in the marathon in April.
In the article, there was this line:
Legend has it that the marathon’s distance is the same as the run a Greek soldier made from Marathon to Athens to announce a military victory in ancient times.
相傳，馬拉松的距離等同於古代一名希臘士兵從馬拉松跑到雅典、宣告軍事勝利的距離。
If you didn’t know this fixed expression “legend has it (that)...” before, it is worthwhile to learn it because it crops up quite commonly in both speech and writing.
“Legend has it” essentially means “according to a well-known old story or tradition.” It suggests that the story that is quoted is famous and widely repeated but may not have been fully proven to be true. Very often, this expression is used in a bit of a stylized way -- like a little “faux” dramatic -- to attract interest. As in, the “legend” referred to can be serious but also is often a bit it tongue-in-cheek.
It is not difficult to learn and even to remember what a fixed expression means when we encounter one, but, if we really want to be able to use the expression productively in our own sentences to express our own meanings, we cannot just know what it means -- we must also understand its structural properties.
This is why I always stress the importance of a structural framework in foreign language learning. Without this framework, even if you have encountered or memorized many fixed expressions, you wouldn’t be able to “use” them in language production accurately -- because you would have no systematic structural basis of putting it into a sentence.
The point about fixed expressions is that, yes, they are important to learn and even memorize in terms of forms and meanings, but we still always have to have a sound structural framework to put them in -- in order to make sense of their roles in sentences.
Fixed expressions are just as their name suggests -- they have “fixed,” specific meanings understood readily by native speakers -- but they can be anything structurally. They can be any type of phrase or even clause.
As such, if you only know what fixed expressions mean but don’t understand their structural properties (or don’t have a structural framework to understand them in), you might be able to decipher their meanings receptively when you encounter them, but you would not be able to reliably express meanings with them in your own sentences.
For example, “legend has it (that)...” is a fixed expression that has the structure of a complete outer clause with a “that”-embedded clause embedded inside to elaborate on what the “legend” is.
In our example, the “legend” is the origin of the modern marathon:
Legend has it that the marathon’s distance is the same as the run a Greek soldier made from Marathon to Athens to announce a military victory in ancient times.
相傳，馬拉松的距離等同於古代一名希臘士兵從馬拉松跑到雅典、宣告軍事勝利的距離。
The fixed expression “legend has it…” is the outermost clause here, and the “that”-embedded clause explains the origin of the marathon’s specific distance: “that the marathon’s distance is…”
As a full embedded clause, this “that”-embedded clause has the subject “the marathon’s distance” and the finite verb “is.” (There is a further embedded clause layer within this clause, but it is not relevant to our point now.)
As such, if you did not have an existing structural framework of what embedded clauses are, or what “that”-embedded clauses are specifically, you would not be able to use the fixed expression “legend has it (that)...” accurately in your own sentences -- because you would not systematically know how to complete the part after “that…”
So, remember that, even when you learn fixed expressions, you have to actively build up a structural framework to understand them in at the same time.
Here are two more simple examples of “legend has it...” with “that”-embedded clauses:
Legend has it that a ghost appears in the old castle at night.
相傳，每到晚上，這座古堡就會有鬼魂出現。
Legend has it that this tree is over a thousand years old.
相傳，這棵樹已經有超過一千年的歷史。
My foundational grammar course “Core Concepts of English” is designed to give you exactly the kind of structural foundation that you would need to understand how all English sentences actually work — so that, when you encounter useful expressions like “legend has it…,” you can have a systematic framework to absorb them, analyze them, and eventually use them accurately in your own writing and speaking.
我最近讀到 Associated Press 一篇關於肯亞跑手 Sabastian Sawe 的文章，內容講述他在四月完成了一項非常驚人的成就：在馬拉松賽事中突破 2 小時大關。
文章裡有這一句：
Legend has it that the marathon’s distance is the same as the run a Greek soldier made from Marathon to Athens to announce a military victory in ancient times.
相傳，馬拉松的距離等同於古代一名希臘士兵從馬拉松跑到雅典、宣告軍事勝利的距離。
如果你以前不知道 “legend has it (that)...” 這個固定表達，就很值得學起來，因為它在說話和書寫中都經常出現。
「Legend has it」基本上的意思就是「相傳；據傳說」。它表示被引述的故事很有名、廣泛流傳，但未必已經被完全證實為真。很多時候，這個表達會帶有一點「風格化」的感覺——有點刻意營造「戲劇感」——用來吸引讀者興趣。換句話說，所說的「legend」可以是嚴肅的傳說，但也經常可以帶有一點玩味的語氣。
當我們遇到一個固定表達方式（fixed expression），要學懂、甚至記住它的意思，其實並不是太困難。但是，如果我們真的想在自己的句子裡生產性地使用這個表達方式，去表達自己的意思，我們就不能只是知道它的意思——我們也必須理解它的結構特徵。
這就是為甚麼我一直強調，在外語學習中，結構框架非常重要。沒有這個框架，即使你遇過或背過很多固定表達方式，也不代表你能夠在語言生產中準確地「使用」它們——因為你沒有一個有系統的結構基礎，去知道應該怎樣把它加進句子裡。
關於固定表達方式，重點是：對的，它們的字形和意思都是一定要直接學和記的；但是，我們仍然必須有一個穩固的結構框架去承載它們，才可以真正理解它們在句子中的角色。
Fixed expressions 指的，顧名思義，是有母語人士都懂的固定特定意思的表達方式。它只是指在意思上是有特定意思的表達方式，但在結構上，它們可以是任何類型的詞組或子句。
因此，如果你只知道固定表達方式的意思，卻不理解它們的結構特徵（或者沒有一個結構框架去理解它們），你「接收性」地遇到它們時，可能能夠解讀它們的意思；但你未必能夠可靠地在自己的句子裡使用它們去表達意思。
例如，「legend has it (that)...」是一個固定表達方式，而它的結構是一個完整的外層子句，裡面嵌入了一個「that」嵌入子句，來擴充說明這個「legend」到底是甚麼。
在我們的例子中，這個「legend」就是現代馬拉松的起源：
Legend has it that the marathon’s distance is the same as the run a Greek soldier made from Marathon to Athens to announce a military victory in ancient times.
相傳，馬拉松的距離等同於古代一名希臘士兵從馬拉松跑到雅典、宣告軍事勝利的距離。
這裡，「legend has it…」是最外層子句，而後面的完整「that」嵌入子句則解釋馬拉松這個特定距離的起源：「that the marathon’s distance is…」
作為一個完整的嵌入子句，這個「that」嵌入子句有主語「the marathon’s distance」，也有限定動詞 「is」。（在這個子句裡還有更深一層的嵌入子句，但這暫時不是我們現在的重點。）
因此，如果你本來沒有結構框架去理解嵌入子句是甚麼，或者更具體地說，沒有結構框架去理解「that」嵌入子句是甚麼，你就無法準確地在自己的句子裡用「legend has it (that)...」這個固定表達方式——因為你不會有系統地知道，後面「that…」的部分在結構上應該怎樣完成。
所以，記住：即使你是在學固定表達方式時，也要同時主動建立結構框架，去理解這些它們。
以下是兩個更簡單的「legend has it…」例子，後面同樣接上「that」嵌入子句解釋那「傳說」：
Legend has it that a ghost appears in the old castle at night.
相傳，每到晚上，這座古堡就會有鬼魂出現。
Legend has it that this tree is over a thousand years old.
相傳，這棵樹已經有超過一千年的歷史。
我的基礎文法課程《Core Concepts of English》，正正就是為了幫你建立結構基礎，讓你能夠真正理解英文句子是怎樣運作的。這樣，當你遇到「legend has it…」這類有用的表達方式時，你就不只是大概記住它的中文意思，而是有一個有系統的框架去吸收它、分析它，並且逐步能夠在自己的寫作和說話中準確使用它。