One way to hold this word: marks with gaps between them. Spot plus -y means covered in spots, and the important part is not the spots — it is the empty space around them. Something here, nothing there, something again further on. That pattern is on a moth's wing and on a teenager's face, and it is also what a weak phone signal looks like on a map: a patch that works, a patch that does not.
可以想成「一點一點，中間有空隙」。spot 是點，-y 是滿是；不過真正的重點不在點本身，而在點跟點之間的空白。這裡有、那裡沒有、再過去又有。這個分布長在蛾的翅膀上、長在少年的臉上，也長在手機訊號的地圖上——有一塊通、有一塊不通。所以從「有斑點」到「時好時壞」，其實是同一張圖。
From the word’s history
From Middle English spotty: the noun spot plus the ending -y, meaning covered in spots.
這個字從中古英文就有了，結構是 spot（點、斑）加上字尾 -y（滿是……的），字面就是「布滿斑點的」。
Wiktionary etymology for spotty supplied in evidence packet (kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1095126621): From Middle English spotty, equivalent to spot + -y.
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。