Work at full blast

最近同事特別賣力，全力工作（work at full blast），都是為了安安樂樂過個悠長的聖誕假期！

Blast本身解「爆炸」，用作名詞或動詞均可。例如，Luckily, no one was injured in the blast.（幸運地，爆炸中沒有人受傷。）The church was blasted in the 1950s and rebuilt afterwards.（那教堂在50年代時被炸毀，然後重建。）

At full blast的意思是「開足馬力」，例如指「以最大的聲音」、「以最大的力量」等等。例句：Once the machines start, you have to shout at full blast to be heard by anyone.（機器一啟動後，你必須非常大聲說話，別人才可以聽到。）The workers must fix the water pipes as soon as possible, so they worked at full blast round the clock.（工人必須盡快修好水管，所以他們全力24小時工作。）

省去at，只用full blast也可。譬如，The air conditioner was on full blast but everyone was still sweating in the room.（冷氣已經開盡了，但房間裏每個人都在流汗。）After a day in the office under the full blast of air conditioning and drinking many cups of coffee, I feel really dehydrated.（在辦公室一整天開大冷氣，又喝了很多杯咖啡，我感到非常脫水。）

（本欄逢周一、三、五刊登）