Why are people looking up 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.
前白宫工作人员Cliff Sims出版的一本书，近日上了诸多头条，尤其是在Trump本人对其发表了一些看法之后，其中gofer一词更是博得大量关注。
Trump发文
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
可以想见，白宫拒绝对此书发表评论，Trump只能转而在推特上对Sims发起攻击，他写道，“一个我都不认识的叫Cliff Sims的低水平职员又胡编乱造了一本无聊的书。 他假装是一名内幕人士，事实上他只不过是个跑腿的。 他签署了保密协议。 他是一个**！”
What does gofer mean?
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，从构词法上就可以看出，它实际上就是"go for"的变体，有时也写做gopher 或 go-fer。
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