The trouble with the etymology of theory and the way in which the word has been used traditionally is that sometimes it actually means practice, and then at other historical periods it means something very different from practice, something typically from which practice is derived.

理论这个词在词源,和传统的使用方法上的复杂之处在于,它有时候指的是实践，但在特定的历史时期,它指的是和实践非常不同的东西，也就是实践产生的依据。

耶鲁公开课 - 文学理论导论课程节选

It's often fanciful; it relates imaginatively events which it claims Happened in historical time, not in a primordial realm before time, And a myth is designed to explain some kind of practice or ritual or custom or natural phenomenon.

它常常天马行空，关乎一些想象中的事件,它们发生在有历史记载的时期，不是在史前原始王国，所以杜撰故事一般都是来解释一些惯例,或者仪式和风俗或者自然现象。

耶鲁公开课 - 旧约导论课程节选