每日一词学英语(67): vicissitude

1776年的今天美国签署了《独立宣言》，127年之后才有人提出应该好好保存这份珍贵文件。独立战争期间，这份文件只是像一份普通地图一样被简单地卷起来，诚然，战争变化无常，这也许可以理解。
During the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence was rolled up and toted around like a Thomas Bros. map, although, given the vicissitudes of war, that’s perhaps understandable.

Vicissitude在Wiktionary中有两个意思：
1. Regular change or succession from one thing to another, or one part of a cycle to the next; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
2. (often plural) a change, especially in one's life or fortunes.
今天着重介绍的是它第2个解释，一般用复数形式，常用于表示战争无常，另一个例句：
*The vicissitudes of war in Iraq cast a dreary backdrop for Donald Rumsfeld's first visit to Asian military allies since he became US Defense Secretary in 2001. (2003, "US redeployments afoot in Asia", Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 18, Pg. 6.)

旁白：本博Alexa全球排名首次突破700万，最新排名698.3734万(July 4, 2009)。