新视野研究生英语读说写2英语原文加翻译及课后答案
Unit3 濒危物种vs.人类需求
Martha Grace Low
1、The most famous endangered species on earth were the dinosaurs. They died out in one of five "great extinctions "that have occured in the millions of years since life began on this planet ----periods in which, for natural causes ,a large percentage of the specices that ecisted simply disappeared .We are now in the middle of a six great extinction ,but this one has been caused by human activity. Consequently ,the importance of preserving species is a popular topic today ,particurlarly in the industrialized world .
地球上最著名的濒危动物是恐龙。自从地球上有生命以来,发生过5次“大灭绝”,每次都是由于自然的原因使得曾经存在的很多物种消失。恐龙就在几百万年中5次“大灭绝”中的其中一次灭绝。现在我们正处在第六次“大灭绝”的中期,但这次人类活动造成的。因此,物种保护的重要性成了当今的热门话题,尤其是在当今工业化世界。
2、But no discussion of endangered species is complete without an examination of the reasons behind its causes,which are human needs.In Africa ,where the world's population is growing the fastest are shringking as people clear lands for homes and farms and cut wood for fuel.Herds of goats and sheep eat the vegetation,leaving the bare soil to be carried away by wind and water .Human kill wildlife to protect their crops ,and may also kill them for the illegal trade in ivory ,rhinoceros horns ,furs .In Latin America and Southeast Asia ,rainforests are cleared for farmlands and for fuel and timber .The loss of the forest endangers many species of plants and destroys many animals'habitats.or natural homes .And in the oceans ,fish supplies have been greatly reduced by overfishing and by pollutin.
但是,如果不考察导致物种濒危背后的原因而去讨论物种灭绝是不全面的。其背后的原因就是人类需要。在全球人口增长速度最快的非洲,森林在不断萎缩,因为人们为了住房和农场而开垦土地,为了燃料而砍伐树木。成群的山羊和绵羊吃掉草皮,造成土壤裸露而被风和水流带走。人们杀害野生动物以保护农作物,或去做非法象牙、犀牛角、皮毛贸易。在拉丁美洲和东南亚,为了农田、燃料和木材,雨林被砍伐。森林减失危及许多种植物,并破坏许多动物的栖息环境或自然家园。而在海洋,过度捕鱼和污染已使鱼的供应大大减少了。
3、Humans want to survive just as every other species does .we need food ,shelter ,and a place to rear our young ,So how do our activities endanger other species ?Speciefically ,there are three major ways ,We kill off animals directly in some cases ,We may want their meat ,bones .skins ,tusks .horns,or feathers ;or we may wantto protect our crops and livestock from them ,By overhunting ,Euro-Americans endangered the buffalo in North America ,and in the nin eteenth century hunters drove to extinction the passenger pigeon ,which was probably the most populous species that have ever lived.
人类和其他物种一样都渴望生存。我们需要食物、住所和哺育后代的地方。那么,我们的行为是怎样危及其他物种的呢?具体说来,主要有三种途径。我们有时直接杀死动物,或许是因为希望得到它们的肉、骨头、皮、牙、角或羽毛;或许是为了保护农作物和牲畜。由于过度狩猎,欧裔美国人使北美的野牛濒于灭绝。19世纪灭绝的旅鸽就是由于过度狩猎所致,而旅鸽曾经可能是生活在地球上的数量最多的鸟类。
4、Another way that we endanger native life-forms is by introducing foreign species into their habitat .A prime example of this was the introduction of European rabbits into Australia . where they multiplied until they endangered the native species of grazing animals by eating all the vegetation .This became a terrible problem that has finally been brought under some control ,though not completely solved.
我们危及当地生态的另一种方式是引进外来物种。一个突出的例子是把欧洲的兔子引入澳洲。在澳洲,它们的数量倍增,以至吃掉所有植被,危及当地其他的吃草动物。这就造成了一个可怕的问题。虽然这一问题最后得到了一定的控制,但并没有完全解决。
7、Many people's answer is thar every life-form has a right to exist,and that no other reason is needed for preserving it,A more common reason is the beauty of many species .Certain species also provide humans with economic value ,But scientists identify two additional reasons which may not be obvious to most of us.
许多人的回答是:每个物种都有生存的权利,因而保护它们不需要其它任何理由。而一个更加普遍的理由是物种多样化可使地球更加美丽。况且某些物种对人类还有经济价值。然而科学家却给出了另外两个我们大多数人可能没有意识到的理由。
8、one of these reasons is that each life -form occupies a special place within its ecosystem --that is .its community of plant and animal life ,in combination with the nonliving components of its environment such as the climate ,soil .water .and air.For instance within a forest the larger trees drop off little twigs and debris.making a layer that holds water in the soil for other plants to use .The roots hold the soil and prevent it from washing away in rainstorms.Whether living or dead.the tree provides shelter for animals and birds and food for insects.As the dead tree rots away,it enriches the soil of the forest floor ,enabling other plants to spring up in its place Such large trees are an example of what we call keystone species ;if they disappeared from their ecosystem .the consequences would be felt throughout the community of other species living in the forest ,"The loss of akeystone species is like a drill accidentally striking a powerline ",says biologist Edward wilson of Harvard University ."It causes lights to go out all over " During the current sixth great extinction .three species of life-forms are dying out every hour ,or74per day .which equals 2700.each year .Some of these ---and we donot even know which ones ---are undoubtedly keystone species.
理由之一是,每个物种在它所处的由所有动植物和无生命的气候、土壤、水和空气等组成的生态系统中都占有一个特殊的地位。例如,在森林中,较大的树掉下的残枝在土壤中形
成一个水分保持层,供其它植物利用。它们的根可以固定土壤,防止土壤被暴雨冲走。无论是活树还是枯树都可以为动物和鸟提供栖息地,为昆虫提供食物。枯树腐烂以后还可以肥沃森林地里的土壤,得以使其它植物从原处拔地而出。这样的大树就是我们所说的主要物种;如果它们从生态系统中消失,其影响会遍及所有生长在森林里的其它物种。哈佛大学的生物学家爱德华威尔逊说:“一个主要物种的消失就像钻头意外地钻断电线,导致四处断电。”在当前第六次“大灭绝”时期,每小时平均有三个物种灭绝,也就是每天有74个物种灭绝,每年合计达27000个。其中有些物种(虽然我们不确定是哪些)毫无疑问是主要物种。
9、Natural ecosytems are characterized by biodiversity ,which means that a good variety of plant and animal life are present there ,In many parts of today's world .humans have replaced naturally diverse environments with monoculture ,in which only one species lives --one that we humans value , A prime example in forested regions of the world is the monocultural "tree farms "that have been planted after the original forests have been cut down .The character of these tree farms is very different from that of the original forests.
自然界的生态系统以物种多样性为特征,这意味着种类繁多的动植物在其中生存。当今在世界许多地区,人类用单一环境替换本来自然形成的不同环境。在这些单一的;环境中,只有我们人类看重的某一物种得以生存。在世界上的森林地区就有一个突出的例子:在原森林被砍伐之后,人们在原处建造了“林场”,但只栽种了某单一品种的树木。这样的林场和以前的森林是有很大差别的。
10、In the case of forests .another extre,ely important reason for presserving species is illustrated by the pacific yew tree ,which people used to down and never replant because they thought it had no particular value,But recently medical researches discovered that a substance called taxol .produced naturally in the bark of this tree ,is an effective medication for treating certain kinds of cancer ,Suddenly harvesters began flocking to the forests of the North American Pacific Northwest in search of this tree,If it had become extinct before its value had been discovered .many cancer patients would have died needlessly.
谈到森林,还要再提一个及其重要的保护物种的理由。太平洋紫杉的例子就很好的说明了这一点。人们过去认为紫杉没有特殊价值,因而砍伐以后就不再重载。但最近医学研究发现,一种从紫杉树皮中自然产生的叫作紫杉醇的物质是治疗某些癌症的有效药物。突然之间,人们开始大批聚集到北美靠近太平洋的西北部地区森林里寻找这种树。如果这种树在它的价值被发现之前就已灭绝,那么许多癌症患者就难逃厄运了。
11、Now .consider for a moment that there are around 1.6million species that we have identified on earth (plus uncounted others that we haven't identified )and most of them hace never been studied to see whether they might be able to provide us with food or medicine About 15percent of all our medicines are derived from tropical plants.But we have been able to test only about 10percent of the plants that we know about .and have intensively studied less than 1percent .Of the 74species dying out each day .many of them are tropical plants from the rainforests.Om,pst cases .we don't even knoe the value of what we are losing .
现在考虑一下,在地球上已经辨认的物种大约有160万个(加上我们仍未辨认的无数其他物种),它们当中大多数还未被研究,因而不知道它们是否为可以我们提供食物或药物。人类大约有15%的药物来自热带雨林,但我们现在能测试的只有我们所知道的植物10%左右,深入研究过的不到1%一天内灭绝的74个物种,大多数是热带雨林植物。在许多情况下,我们甚至不知道我们所失去的物种的价值。
12、If we turn from medicines to food sources ,we find that over 50percent of today's global food supply consists of just three grains --wheat,rice and corn .if climatic changes or a plant disease suddenly threatened one of these grains .many people would starve unless we could find another species to strengthen or replace it ,It is dangerous to be so dependent on such a small number of species we need to preserve a wider variety of food species .
如果我们撇开医学而转谈食物来源,我们发现,目前全球食品供应的50%以上只包括三种谷类植物——麦子、稻子、玉米。如果气候变化或植物疾病突然威胁到这些谷类植物当中的一个。那么许多人就会挨饿,除非我们能找到其他物种来加强或替换它。人类对少数物种对的过于依赖是很危险的。我们需要保护广泛的植物种类来作为食物来源。
13、Finally ,a very important reason for preserving forestland is that plants produce the oxygen that animals (like us )breathe ,and forests produce more of the world's oxygen than any other environment ,Forests also make the air more humid ,producing rain;and the loss of forests leads to the process of desertification ---the creation of deserts where little will grow.
最后还有一个保护森林的非常重要的原因,就是植物生产动物(如我们)呼吸的氧气,并且森林产出的氧气比其他任何环境都多。森林还使空气更加潮湿,并带来降雨;森林的消失会导致沙漠化,也就是形成几乎没有任何植物生长的沙漠。
14、Many methods of protecting endangered species are being practiced in different parts of the globe ,Legislation is a common method : passing laws against killing endangered species or destroying their habitat ,Worldwide ,over 1200parks and preserves have been set aside in which wildlife are protected ,And certain endangered species are being raised in captivity for later release into their wild habitats .
在世界各地,人们实施着各种不同的保护濒危物种的办法。立法是一个普遍的方法:颁布法律来反对杀害濒危物种或毁坏他们的栖息地。在全世界范围内,已建立了1200个国家公园和保护区保护野生动物。有些濒危动物还由人工饲养,然后再放归大自然。
5 建立婚姻新规范的七条准则
David Popenoe
I propose as a remedy for socieyt?s confusion over marital gender-role expectations, a pattern of late marriage followed, in the early childrearing years, by what one could call a “modified traditional nuclear family.”The main elements of this pattern can be summarized as
follows. (I recognize, of course, that this pattern—being a set of normative expectations—is not something to which everyone can or should conform.)
为了解决社会对婚姻中性别角色期望的困惑,我提议一种婚姻模式:晚婚,然后在哺育小孩子的前几年采纳一种可称为“改良型传统核心家庭”的家庭模式。这个婚姻模式的主要部分可以归纳如下(我当然承认这个模式包含的是一套规范性的期望,并不是每个人都能够或者应该遵循的。)
(1) Girls as well as boys should be trained according to their abilities for a socially useful paid job or career. It is important for women to be able to achieve the economic, social, and psychic rewards of the workplace that have long been reserved for men. It is important for society that everyone be well educated and that they make an important work contribution over the course of their lives.
不仅男孩而且女孩都应该根据他们的能力得到训练,以从事对社会有用的,并能获得报酬的工作或职业。能够在长期以来是男性领地的工作中获得经济的、社会的、心理的回报对女性非常重要。每个人都能够接受良好的教育并且在他们的生命历程中对所从事的工作做出重要的贡献,这对社会非常重要。
(2) Young people should grow up with the expectation that they will marry only once and for
a lifetime and that they will have children. Reproduction is a fundamental purpose of life, and marriage is instrumental to its success. Today, close to 90percent of Americans actually marry, and about the same percentage of American women have children: Although these figures have been dropping, the social expectation in these respects is currently quite well realized. Lifetime monogamy is not so well realized, however, with the divorce rate now standing at over 50 percent.
我们期望年轻人在长大成人后只结一次婚,并且这场婚姻能持续一生,我们还期望他们生儿育女。生命繁衍是人生的根本目的,而婚姻对于这一目标的实现至关重要。当前,接近90%的美国人确实结了婚,大约有相同比例的美国女性生育了孩子:虽然这些数字一直在下降,但是目前社会在这些方面的期望还是较好地得到了实现。然而由于当前离婚率超过50%,社会对终生一夫一妻的期望就不如人意了。
(3) Young adults should be encouraged to marry later in life than is common now, with an average age at time of marriage in the late twenties or early thirties (the average ages currently are twenty-six for men and twenty-four for women). Even later might be better for men, but better for men, but at older ages than this for women who want children, the “biological clock” becomes a growing problem.
应该鼓励年轻人比现在的普遍年龄在晚一些,平均结婚年龄在30岁左右。甚至再晚一些对男性更好。但是如果超过这个年龄,对于想要小孩的女性来说,生物钟问题将越来越突出。
Form society?s viewpoint, the most important reason why people should be encouraged to marry relatively late in life is that they are more mature, they know better what they want in a
mate, they are more established in their jobs or careers, and the men have begun to “settle down”, sexually (partly due to a biological diminution of their sex drive). Age at marriage has proven to be the single most important predictor of eventual divorce, with the highest divorce rates found among those who marry in their teenage years. But we must also recognize that both women and men want to have time, when they are young, to enjoy the many opportunities for personal expression and fulfillment that modern, affluent societies are able to provide.
从社会的角度看,鼓励人们相对晚婚的最重要的上网理由是,那是他们更成熟,更明白想从自己另一半哪里得到什么,有更好的工作和事业基础,而且男性性生活趋于平稳。结婚年龄已经被证明是能够预测最终是否离婚的唯一的最重要的因素。离婚率最高的群体是那些十几岁就结婚的年轻人。但是我们也必须承认男性和女性都希望在年轻的时候有时间享有现在富有社会所提供的表达自我,实现自我的诸多机会。
We should anticipate that many of these years of young adulthood will be spent in nonmarital cohabitation, an arrangement that often makes more sense than the alternatives to it, especially living along or continuing to live with one?s family of origin. I am not implying, much less advocating, sexual promiscuity here, but rather serious, caring relationships which may involve cohabitation.
我们应该预料到成年初期的不少年头将会在非婚同居中度过。比起其他选择。特备是独居胡哟这继续生活在原来家里的,这是一个更加合乎常理的生活安排。我这里不是在暗示,更不是在倡导滥交,而是指严肃,相互关爱的,可能涉及同居的恋爱关系。
(4)From the perspective of promoting eventual family life, however, the downside to late age of marriage is that people live for about a decade or more in a nonfamily, “singles” environment which reinforces their personal drive for expressive individualism and conceivably reduces their impulse toward carrying out eventual family obligations, thus making the transition to marriage and childrearing more difficult. To help overcome the anti-family impact of these years, young unmarried adults should be encouraged to save a substantial portion of their income for a “family fund” with an eye toward offsetting the temporary loss of the wife?s income after marriage and childbirth.
然而,从促进生活家庭的角度来看,结婚年龄大的缺点在于人们在10年或者更长的时间里生活在没有家庭的单身汉环境中,这段经历会强化他们追求表现型个人主义倾向。社会减少他们履行最终家庭义务的愿望。从而使向婚姻和抚育小孩的国度更加困难。为了克服这些年形成的不利于家庭生活的影响,应当鼓励年轻的未婚青年人将收入的大部分存起来作为家庭基金,一边抵消在结婚和生育之后妻子暂时失去收入的损失。
(5)Once children are born, wives should be encouraged to leave the labor market and become substantially full-time mothers for a period of at least a year to eighteen months per child. The reason for this is that mother-reared infants appear to have distinct advantages over those reared apart from their mothers. It is desirable for children to have full-time parenting up to at least age
three, but after eighteen months—partly because children by then are more verbal—it is appropriate for fathers to become the primary caretakers, and some men may wish wo avail themselves of the opportunity. At age three, there is no evidence that children in quality group care suffer any disadvantages (in fact, for most children there are significant advantages). Once children reach that age, therefore, the average mother could resume working part-time until the children are at least of school age, and preperably in their early to middle teen years, at which point she could resume work full-time. Alternatively, when the children reach the age of three the father could stay home part-time, and the mother could resume work full-time.
小孩出生以后,应该鼓励妻子离开劳动力市场,为每个孩子切实的做到至少到18个月的全职母亲。这样做的原因是母亲哺育的婴儿似乎比离开母亲抚养的婴儿有明显的优势,至少在3岁之前儿童最好有母亲全职照顾,但是18个月以后----部分原因在于那是儿童语言表达能力更强-----可以让父亲承担主要照料工作,而且有的男人也希望拥有这个机会,在3岁得时候,没有证据显示接收优良集体照看的儿童有什么不利之处。因此,一旦儿童达到那个年纪,一般母亲可以重新开始做兼职工作,一直到小孩至少达到入小学年龄。最好是13,14岁到15,16,17左右的时候。那时候母亲可以重新开始做全职工作。或者正在小孩3岁的时候,父亲可以做兼职工作,并在家照料孩子。而母亲可以重新开始做全职工作。
For women, this proposal is essentially the strategy known as “sequencing”. The main difficulty with it, as sociologist Phyllis Moen has noted,” is that child-nurturing years are also the career-nurturing years. What is lost in either case cannot be …made up? at a later time.” Yet I would argue that it is possible to “make up” for career loss, but impossible to make up for child-nurturing loss. To make it economically more possible for a family with young children to live on a single income, we should institute (in addition to the “family fund”) what virtually every other industrialized society already has in place—parental leave and child allowance programs. And, to help compensate women for any job or career setbacks due to their time out of the labor force, we should consider the development of “veterans benefits” type programs that provide mothers with financial subsidies and job priorities when they return to the paid work force. In general, women must be made to feel that caring for young children is important work., respected by the working community.
对女性来说,这个提议实质上就是被称为“人生排”的策略。正如社会学家菲利斯.莫恩提到的,他的主要困难”在于照料孩子的时光也正是建立事业的年纪。两者损失都无法再以后弥补。然而我想说在事业上的损失都能够弥补的。而养孩子的损失却是无法弥补的。为了使有幼孩子的家庭能够只靠一份收入生活,我们应该设立—几乎所有工业化国家早就已经有的---育儿假以及儿童补贴项目。另外,为了帮助补偿女性由于一段时间不在职场而遇到的工作或者事业挫折,我们应该考虑类似“退伍军人补贴金的方法”,使他们重新就业时给予母亲以经济补贴和工作优先权。总之,必须让女性感到照料小孩是一项重要的工作,是受到就业群体尊重的。
(6)According to this proposal, the mother and not the father ordinarily would be the primary
caretaker of infants. This is because of fundamental biological differences between the sexes that assume great importance in childrearing, as discussed above. The father should be an active supporter of the mother-child bond during this period, however, as well as auxiliary homemaker and care provider. Fathers should expect to spend far more time in domestic pursuits than their own fathers did. Their work should include not only the male?s traditional care of the house as a physical structure and of the yard and car, but in many cases cooking, cleaning, and child care, the exact distribution of such activities depending on the individual skills and talents of the partners. And, as noted above, after children reach age eighteen months it may be desirable for the father and not the mother to become the primary caretaker. This means that places of employment must make allowances for substantial flex-time and part-time job absence for fathers as well as for mothers.
根据这个提议,母亲而不是父亲成为婴儿的主要照看人。是因为,如前所述,男女性别之间的基本生理差异对育儿有重大影响。不过,父亲在这个阶段应该成为母亲关系的积极支持者,同时海燕帮助照料家务和照看孩子。父亲应该要比他们自己的父辈在家承担的事务上要花更多的时间。他们的职责范围应该不近包括传统上就一直有男性承担打理房屋,庭院和汽车,在很多情况下还包括做饭,打扫卫生和照顾小孩。这些事物的具体分工还取决于配偶双方的个人技巧和才能。而且,如前面提到的,在婴儿涨到18个月以后可以有父亲而不是母亲充当主要照看人。这就意味着用工单位必须不近体谅母亲而且还要体谅父亲在弹性工作时间和非全日制时的经常缺勤。
(7)It should be noted that there is some balancing out of domestic and paid-work roles between men and women over the course of life. Under current socioeconomic conditions, husbands, being older, retire sooner than their wives. Also, in later life some role switching occurs, presumably caused in part by hormonal changes, in which women become more work-oriented and men become more domestic. Given current male-female differences in longevity, of course, the average woman can expect to expect to spend an estimated seven years of her later life as a widow.
应该注意的是,在一生中男性和女性所承担的家务和带薪工作是基本相当的。在当前的经济状况下,丈夫由于年龄大,比妻子退休的早。而且,在后半生会发生一定的角色转换,部分想必是有荷尔蒙变化引起的。在这个转换过程中,女性更加倾向外出工作,而男性则变得更加乐于操持家务。当然鉴于现在的男女寿命差异,一般女性在后半生估计要寡居7年左右。
Male breadwinning and female childrearing have been the pattern of social life throughout history, albeit not always in quite so extreme a form as found in modern societies over the past century and a half. Except perhaps for adult pair-bonds in which no young children are involved, where much social experimentation is possible, it is foolhardy to think that the nuclear family can or should be entirely scrapped. When children become a part of equation, fundamental biological and social constraints come into play—such as the importance of mothers to young children—and
central elements of the nuclear family are dismissed at society?s peril. Rather than strive for androgyny and be continuously frustrated and unsettled by our lack of achievement of it, we would do much better to more readily acknowledge, accommodate, and appreciate the very different needs, sexual interests, values, and goals of each sex. And rather than the unisex pursuit of “freedom with a male bias,” we should be doing more to foster a culture in which the traditional female values of relationship and caring are given a higher priority and respect.
男人挣钱养家、女人生儿育女是有史以来天经地义的社会生活模式,虽然这种模式并不总如过去一个半世纪现代社会中表现得那样极端。也许除了在没有年幼儿童的成人伴侣中可以进行很多社会实验,认为核心家庭可以或者应该被完全抛弃是极其鲁莽的。当孩子成为综合考虑因素的一部分时,基本的生理和社会限制就开始发挥作用——比如母亲对幼小儿童的重要性——如果抛弃核心家庭的中心元素,社会将会承担极大的风险。与其努力同时承担男性挣钱养家和女性生儿育女的双重责任,并为自己不能达到目的而不断地感到失望和不安,不如我们更坦然地承认、考虑、并欣赏不同性别的截然不同的需求、性兴趣、价值观和目标,这样我们会做得更好。与其不分男女都追求“具有男性偏向的自由”,我们应该做更多的工作来促进一种社会文化:给予注重家庭亲情关系和养育子女的传统女性价值观更多的重视和尊重。
In a much modified form, then, traditional marital gender roles are necessary if the good of society---and of individuals --- are to be advanced.
因此,如果要推进社会及个人的利益吗,经过改良的传统婚姻性别角色是必要的。
Translation
[A] 1.人们认为年轻人最好在事业有成之后再结婚,过安定的生活。
It is considered desirable for young people to get married and settle down only after they are established in their jobs.
2. 她的丈夫是个非常顾家的人,每天都花很多时间做饭,打扫卫生、照顾三个正在上学的孩子。
Her husband is a very domestic person, spending a lot of time everyday in cooking, cleaning and caring for their three school-age children.
3. 现在的年轻人具有与他们的父母截然不同的价值观和期望,他们认为个人享乐比家庭责任更重要。
Today?s young people have completely different values and expectations from their parents, giving higher priority to personal pleasure over family obligations.
4. 从社会角度看,妇女一辈子当全职家庭主妇是不明智的,更不要说受过良好教育的妇女了。
From society?s viewpoint, it does not make sense for women, much less well educated women, to be full-time homemakers for a lifetime.
5. 二十几岁的单身男女认为同居是婚前考察未来伴侣品质、习惯的途径。可是婚前同居已证明与较高的离婚风险相关联。
Singles in their twenties see cohabitation as a way to investigate a prospective partner?s character and habits before marriage. But premarital cohabitation has proven to be associated with a higher divorce risk.
6. 为了儿童的福利,政府应该制定政策,为父母提供兼职、临时和弹性工作时间的工作机会以及带薪育儿假。
In the interest of child welfare, government should institute policies to provide part-time, temporary and flextime job opportunities and paid parental leave for parents.
7. 着眼于建立牢固持久的婚姻关系,夫妻在发生摩擦时应该相互体谅。
With an eye toward forming strong and lasting marital unions, couples should make allowances for each other, when there is friction between them.
8. 考虑到离婚率很高,已婚母亲如果长期脱离劳动力市场就将自担风险——一旦她们的婚姻以离婚告终,她们将遭受严重的经济损失。
Given the high divorce rate, married mothers leave the labor market for an extended period of time at their own peril — they will suffer severe economic loss if their marriage ends in divorce. 9. 父母与子女之间的关系是一种非常特殊的关系。父母为子女所做出的牺牲是无法用金钱补偿的。
The bond between child and parent is a very special one. Money can not make up for the sacrifices parents have made for their children.
10. 劳动人口中男女平等日益增强为女性在事业上实现自己的抱负提供了史无前例的机遇。Increasing gender equality in the work force provides women historically unprecedented opportunities for personal fulfillment in their careers.
6.Ambition and Its Enemies
1、America is a nation of ambitious people, and yet ambition is a quality that is hard to praise and easy to deplore. It?s a great engine of American creativity, but it also can be an unrelenting oppressor, which robs us of time and peace of mind. Especially in highly prosperous periods —periods like the present — it becomes fashionable to question whether ambition has gotten out of hand and is driving us to excesses of striving and craving that are self-destructive.
美利坚是一个雄心勃勃的民族,然而雄心这种品质却很少受到赞赏,更多受到的是谴责。它是激发美国人创造力的巨大动力,但是也会是一个残酷的压迫者,剥夺我们的1992时间和平和的心态,特别是在高度繁荣的时期——就像现在人们普遍质疑雄心是不是已经失去了控制,并正在驱使着我们走向导致自我毁灭的过度奋斗和过度渴望。
2、Ambition is not, of course, only a quest for riches. The impulse pervades every walk of life. Here is Al Gore straining to be president — campaigning earnestly without any apparent joy — to fulfill an ambition that must date back to his diaper days. And does anyone really believe that the fierce rivalry among America?s immensely rich computer moguls is abou t money? What it concerns is the larger ambition to control the nation?s cyberagenda.
雄心当然不只是对财富的追求。这种推动力遍布社会各个行业,各个阶层。阿尔,戈尔正在竭尽全力力争当选总统——尽心竭力地参加竞选活动,毫无乐趣可言——为了实现一个准是在孩提时代就已萌发的雄心壮志。难道会有人真的相信美国及其富有的电脑巨头之间的激烈竞争只是为了金钱?这场竞争的目的是实现更大的野心——控制美国的网络世界。
3、One-upmanship is a national mania. You see it every time a wide receiver prances into the
end zone and raises his index finger in triumph. More common is the search for status symbols —a bigger house, a more exotic vacation, a niftier bike, a faster computer — that separate us from the crowd. Money may not be the only way to satisfy this urge, but it?s the most common because it can so easily translate itself into some other badge of identity and standing.
对胜人一筹的狂热充斥着整个民族。每当橄榄球边接应队员大步冲入球门区,并怀着胜利的喜悦竖起象征第一名的食指时,你都会看到这种狂热。更为普遍的则是对地位象征的追求——更大的房子,更有异国情调的假期,更灵便的自行车,速度更快的电脑——这些使我们有别于一般大众。金钱不一定是满足这种渴求的唯一途径,但它却是最常见的途径,因为它可以很容易地转化为其他某种身份和地位的象征。
4、For many people, the contest seems futile. The New York Times recently ran a long story on four families with roughly $50,000 of income who “wonder why they have to struggle so hard just to pay the bills.” The answer isn?t that their incomes are stagnating. Between 1992 and 1997, the median income of married couples rose from $48,008 to $51,681 in inflation-adjusted dollars,reports the Census Bureau. They are surely higher now. All the families profiled by the Times owned homes as well as things like big-screen TVs and elaborate outdoor grills.
对于许多人来说,这种竞争毫无意义。<纽约时报>最近刊登了一个长篇报道介绍4个收入约为5万美元的家庭。他们都“奇怪为什么自己必须如此努力地工作,却仅仅能够缴清账单。”问题的答案并不是他们的收入停滞不前。根据美国人口普查局地报告,1992到1997年间,去除通货膨胀的因素,已婚夫妇收入的中位数从48088美元上升到了51681美元。现在的收入水平肯定比以前高。《纽约时报》所描述的家庭都拥有住宅以及大屏幕电视和制作精良的户外烤架等高档消费品。
5、The problem isn?t that they?re running in place but that they?re running in the pack with everyone else. Consumer products morph from luxury to convenience to necessity. Cars, TVs and microwaves all followed the cycle; now it describes Internet connections and cell phones. If you don?t buy by the final stage, you?re considered a crank or a pauper. There?s nothing new here. In The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Thorstein Veblen argued that, once an item becomes widely owned, possessing it becomes a requisite for “self-respect.” People try to consume “just beyond their reach” so they “can outdo” those with whom they compare themselves.
问题不在于他们正跑在跑道上,而在于他们正和所有其他人一起以同样的速度跑在比赛领先者地后面。消费品总是从奢侈品变为给人们带来便利的物品,在变为生活奢侈品。汽车、电视和微波炉都经历了这样一个过程;现在网络和手机也是一样。如果你没有购买最先进的产品,你就会被看成是怪物或者贫民。这并不是什么新鲜的现象。在1899年的著作《有闲阶级论》里,索尔斯坦。维布伦就论述到,一旦一件商品被大多数人拥有,那么拥有它就成为维持“自尊”的必要条件。人们想要购买“超过自己消费能力”的商品。这样他们就“可以胜过”那些他们用来与自己进行比较的人。
6、Frustration is preordained. Despite the booming economy, a Newsweek Poll in June reported that 29 percent of adults found it “more difficult” to “live the kind of life” they want, while only 23 percent found it less difficult. (For 47 percent, there was no change.) The stress can
lead to tragedy. Perhaps this is the story of Mark Barton, the day trader who murdered 12 people. People routinely try to beat the system through get-rich-quick schemes. This partly explains the explosion in legalized gambling. In 1998, Americans lost about $50 billion gambling.
人们注定会感到失望。尽管经济繁荣,《新闻周刊》6月份的一份民意调查却显示百分之29的成年人认为要过上自己想过的生活更困难了,只有百分之23的人觉得更容易(百分之47的人觉得没有变化。),这种压力可能会导致悲剧。这也许就是马克。巴顿,那个谋杀了12个人的当天买卖股票投机者的情况。人们习以为常地试图用各种暴发致富的方法钻制度的空子。这部分解释了合法化赌局急剧增加的原因。在1998年,美国人在赌博中输掉了约500亿美元。
7、We?re constantly advised to subdue ambition. Search for deeper meaning in family, friends and faith, we?re told. Money cannot buy happiness. This seems sensible —up to a point. The General Social Survey at the University of Chicago asks people to rate their happiness. The 1998 survey shows a somewhat stronger relation between money and happiness than earlier polls. About 34 percent of those with incomes between $30,000 and $50,000 were “very happy” and 58 percent were “pretty happy.” Above $110,000, the ratings were 51 percent “very happy” and 45 percent “pretty happy.” (Marriage has a bigger impact than income; the “very happy” rate of couples is about double that of singles.)
我们不断地收到应该克制野心的忠告。人们奉劝我们应该从家庭、朋友和信仰中寻找人生更深刻的意义。金钱买不到幸福。这似乎有一定道理。芝加哥大学展开的综合社会调查要求人们评判自己的幸福等级。1998年的调查显示出的金钱和幸福之间的相关性略高于往年的调查。在收入为3万到5万美元之间的受访者中,大约34%感到“很幸福”,58%感到“相当幸福”,在收入为百万美元以上的受访者中,结果是51%的人感到“很幸福”,45%的人感到“相当幸福”,(婚姻比收入的影响更大;感到“很幸福”的夫妇所占比例是单身的两倍)。
8、In a recent book (Luxury Fever), Cornell University economist Robert Frank urges that we penalize overambition with a progressive consumption tax. The more people spend, the higher their tax rate. Spend $5,000 on a watch instead of $50, and your taxes go up; buy a car for $60,000 instead of $20,000, and pay more taxes. People wouldn?t be worse off, Frank argues, because they?d be shielded from the “arms race” pattern of competitive consumption. Indeed, they?d have more free time, because it wouldn?t pay to work so hard.
在最近的《奢侈品热》一书中,康奈尔大学的经济学家罗伯特·弗兰克敦促我们采用累进消费税来惩罚过度雄心勃勃的行为。人们消费得越多,他们的税率就越高。花5000美元而不是50美元买一块手表,你交的税就会增加;花6万美元而不是2万美元买一辆汽车,你就要交更多的税。弗兰克认为,人们不会因此而变得更穷,因为他们将会得以避免“军备竞赛”式的竞争性消费。实际上,他们会有更多的空余时间,因此如此努力地工作并不划算。
9、Hmm. Let?s rethink. Though unlovable, ambition is socially useful. It sustains economic
vitality. It prods people to take risks and exert themselves. The Internet is the offspring of workaholics spending eight-day weeks to invent a new world and make a fortune. When the process works well, gains overwhelm losses —and not just in economic output. To day?s hyper-prosperity has improved the social climate. Almost all indicators of confidence have increased.
嗯,让我们重新考虑一下。虽然不太可爱,雄心却对社会有益。它使经济保持活力。它促使人们去冒险,去努力。因特网就是工作狂为为了创造一个新世界并借此发一笔大财而每周工作64小时的产物。当他们的工作进展顺利时,所得远远大于所失—--而且这并不仅仅在经济产出方面。今天因特网的超级繁荣也改善了社会心态。几乎所有的信心指数都有所增加。
10、What people disdain as ambition they also venerate as opportunity. As Tocqueville long ago noted, America was built on the notion that — unlike in Europe, with its hereditary aristocracy —people could write their own life stories. The ideal endures. A 1996 survey asked whether anyone starting poor could become rich; 78 percent of Americans thought so. And social standing is fluid everywhere. Ambition and its creative powers permeate the arts, the professions, academia, science. Because everyone can be someone, the competition to excel is unrelenting and often ruthless.
人们鄙视野心,然而同时他们又崇拜它,视其为机遇。正如托克维尔很久之前特别提到的,美国是建立在----不像在具有世袭贵族的欧洲----相信人们可以书写自己的人生故事的观念基础之上的。这个理想持久存在。1996年的一项调查询问是不是所有开始时贫穷的人都可以变得富有;78%的美国人认为可以。而且在任何领域,人们的社会地位都是可以改变的。雄心和它的创造力弥漫在艺术界、职业界、学术界和科学界。因为每个人都可以成名,为脱颖而出的竞争是持久的,甚至常常是残酷的。
11、Few of us escape ambition?s wounds. There are damaged dreams, abandoned projects and missed promotions. Most of us face the pressures of balancing competing demands between our inner selves and outer lives. A society that peddles so many extravagant promises sows much disappointment. Ambition is bitter as often as sweet; but without it, we?d be sunk.
很少有人能逃脱雄心的伤害。有破灭的梦想,放弃的计划和失去的升迁机会。我们大多数人都要面对平衡内心思想、情感和现实生活之间矛盾的压力。一个宣扬这么多不切实际的承诺的谁会导致了很多的失望。雄心往往是苦涩的,正如它往往是甜蜜的一样。但是,没有了它,我们会彻底毁灭。
Translation
[A] 1. 在追求幸福的过程中,人们注定要遭受许多挫折。
People are preordained to suffer many frustrations in their quest for happiness.
2. 美国是一个雄心勃勃的民族。各行各界的人们都面临着力求出类拔萃的激烈竞争压力。American is an ambitious nation. People from every walk of life face the pressure of fierce competition to excel.
3. 当天买卖股票投机是一种危险的谋财之道。
Day trading is a dangerous way of trying to make a fortune.
4. 数百万人怀着暴发致富的幻想花钱买彩票。
Millions of people have a fantasy about getting rich quick and spend money on lotteries.
5. 人们担心如果军备竞赛失控,世界局势将进一步恶化
There is a fear that if the arms race gets out of hand, the world situation will be worse off.
6. 为了保护自己免遭失败的痛苦就放弃自己的抱负是不明智的。
It is not sensible to give up one?s own ambition in order to shield oneself from the bitterness of failure.
7. 许多人拼命挣钱,因为金钱可以买到大房子、小汽车、大屏幕电视以及其他被认为代表地位和身份的消费品。
Many people strain to earn money because money can buy big houses, cars, big-screen TVs and other consumer products which are considered symbols of status and identity.
8. 为了实现我们的抱负而努力奋斗是值得的。
It pays to exert ourselves to fulfill our own ambitions.
9. 十年前大多数中国人还买不起的手机现在已成为很普及的生活必需品。
The cell phone, which was beyond the reach of the majority of the Chinese people a decade ago, has now become a widely owned daily necessity.
10. 自从得到了晋升以后,她就表现得自命不凡。不过在我看来,她只不过是个微不足道的小人物。
She acts as if she were someone since she was promoted. But to me, she is a mere nobody.
7 网络空间:如果你不喜欢它,就离开它
Something in the American psyche loves new frontiers. we hanker after wide-open spaces; we like to explore; we like to make ru les but refuse to follow them. But in this age it?s hard to find a place where you can go and be yourself without worrying about the neighbors.
在灵魂深处,美国人喜欢新的疆界。我们渴望广阔的空间;我们喜欢探索;我们新欢制定规则。然而在现在这个时代,政治正确(言行避免有歧视之嫌)和其他束缚正在侵犯我们国民所崇尚的独立精神,你很难可以找到一个可以去放松自己而不担心邻居打扰的地方。
1.There is such a place: cyberspace.lost in the furor over porn on the net is the exhilarating sense of freedom that this new frontier once promised-and still does in some quarters. Formerly a playground for computer nerds and techies, cyberspace now embraces every conceivable constituency: schoolchildren, flirtatious singles, Hungarian-Americans, accountants. Can they all get along? Or will our fear of kids surfing for dirty pictures behind their bedroom doors provoke a crackdown?
网络空间就是这样一个地方。被淹没在公众对网络色情的激愤之中的事这个新疆界曾经能并且在一些群体中依然能带给人们的一种激动人心的自由感觉。从前,网络空间是计算机爱好者和精通者的天地,而如今各种各样你可以想象的到得人都加入到进来,比如在校学生、打情骂俏的单身汉、匈牙利以美国人、会计师、还有色情爱好者。他们能和睦相处吗?
或者说,我们对于孩子们躲在自己卧室里浏览色情网页的担忧会不会引发政府严厉打击网络色情?
2.The first order of business is to grasp what cyberspace is. It might help to leave behind metaphors of highways and frontiers and to think instead of real estate. Real estate, remember, is an intellectual, legal, artificial environment constructed on top of land. Real estate recognizes the difference between parkland and shopping mall, between red-light zone and school district, between church , state and drugstore.
首先的任务是要弄明白什么是网络空间。或者,抛开高速公路和疆界这样的比喻,而把它看作是房屋土地财产会对我们理解网络空间有所帮助。记住,房屋土地财产是构建在陆地上的、理性的、合法的、人造的环境。房屋土地财产承认公园用地与购物商场的区别,承认红灯区与学校区的区别,承认教堂、政府、与药店的区别。
3.In the same way, you could think of cyberspace as a giant and unbounded world of virtual real estate. Some property is privately owned and rented out; other property is common land; some places are suitable for children, and others are best avoided by all citizens. Unfortunately, it?s those places that are now capturing the popular imagination, places that offer bomb-making instructions, pornography, advice on how to steal credit cards. They make cyberspace sound like a nasty place. Good citizens jump to a conclusion: better regulate it.
同样,你可以把网络空间想象成一个由虚拟房屋土地财产构成的巨大无限的世界。一些财产为个人所有,并对外出租;一些财产属于公共用地;一些场所适合于儿童;而剩下的除了最怪癖的市民,大家最好都远远的避开的地方。不幸的是,当前正是这些地方正在激发人们的想象,比如提供炸弹制造的地方、提供色情内容的地方以及提供被盗信用卡方法的地方。它们让网络空间听起来像一个污秽的场所。善良的公民于是得出这样的结论:最好管理一下网络空间。
6.Aside from being unconstitutional, using censorship to counter indecency and other troubling” speech” fundamentally misinterprets the nature of cyberspace. Cyberspace isn?t a frontier where wicked people can grab unsuspecting children, nor is it a giant television system that can beam offensive messages at unwilling viewers. In the kind of real estate, users have to choose where they visit, what they see, what they do. It?s optional.and it?s much easier to bypass a place on the net than it is to avoid walking past an unsavory block of stores on the way to your local 7-11.
无论颁布多少法令,进行多少诉讼,法规管理都不会奏效。通过审查制度来抵制网络上的下流内容和其他制造麻烦的言论,不仅违反宪法,而且从根本上曲解了网络空间的本质网络空间不是坏人可以抓走毫无戒备的儿童的疆界地带,也不是可以将冒犯性信息强加给不乐意接受的观众的庞大电视体系。在这类房屋土地财产中,用户必须选择它们要访问哪里,他们要看什么,和他们要做什么。用户可以选择避开网上的某个地方,而且与去附近便利店的路上避开一个有许多讨厌商店的街区相比,这要容易的多。
7.Put plainly, cyberspace is a voluntary destination -----in reality, many destinations. You don?t just get “onto the net ”; you have to go someplace in particular. That means that people can choose where to go and what to see. Yes, community standards should be enforced, but those standards should be set by cyberspace communities themselves, not by the courts or by politicians in Washington.what we need isn?t government control over all these electronic communities:we need self-rule.
简单地说,网络空间是一个可供自由选择的目的地——实际上,是可供自由选择的很多目的地。你并不仅仅是“上网”,而且你必须要到某个地方去。也就是说人可以选择要去哪里,看什么。是的,社区行为规范必须执行,但是这些行为规范应该由网络社区自己制定,而不是由法院或者华盛顿的政客们来制定。我们需要的不是政府对网络社区的管理,我们需要的是自制。
10.Second, there are information and entertainment services, where people can download anything f rom legal texts and lists of “great new restaurants” to game software or dirty pictures. These places are like bookstores, malls and movie houses-----places where you go to buy something. The customer needs to request an item or sign up for a subscription; stuff(especially pornography) is not sent out to people who don?t ask for it. Some of these services are free or included as part of a broader service like compuserve or America online; others charge and may bill their customers directly.
第二,网络空间提供信息和娱乐服务,人们可以下载从法律文书、声誉良好的新饭店名单到游戏软件、淫秽图片的任何东西.这些场所类似于你可以去买东西的地方,比如书店、购物中心和电影院。客户需要提出购买某个商品,或者签约订阅某种刊物。否则,任何物品(尤其是色情信息)是不会被发送给他们的,这些服务有些是免费的,或是包含在像美联网和美国在线所提供的广泛服务之中,有些是收费的,可以直接开列账单要求顾客付账。
11.Third, there are “real ” communities-----groups of people who communicate among themselves. In real-estate terms, they?re like bars or restaurants or bathhouses. Each active participant contributes to a general conversation, generally through posted messages. Other participants may simply listen or watch.. some services are supervised by a moderator; others are more like bulletin boards------anyone is free to post anything. Many of these services started out unmoderated but are now imposing rules to keep out unwanted advertising, extraneous discussions or increasingly rude participants.without a moderator, the decibel level often gets too high.
第三,网络空间上有“真正的”社区——内部相互交流的群体。参照房屋土地财产的比喻来说,它们类似与酒吧·饭馆和公共浴室。每个积极的参与者一般通过张贴信息来参与某一个讨论。其他参与者可以只是旁听或者是观望。部分社区由一个版主进行监管,其他的社区则更像电子公告牌——任何人都可以自由的张贴任何东西。许多服务开始时并不设版主,但是现在也实行强制规定以防止出现无用的广告·无用的讨论或日益粗鲁的参与者。没有版主,社区讨论往往会分贝太高,显得过于吵杂。
14.What?s unique about cyberspace is that it allows communities of any size and kind to flourish; in cyberspace, communities are chosen by the users, not forced on them by accidents of geography. This freedom gives the rules that preside in cyberspace a moral authority that rules in
terrestrial environments don?t have. Most people are stuck in the country of their birth, but if you don?t like the rules of a cyberspace community, you can just sign off. Love it or leave it. Likewise, if parents don?t like the rules of a given cyberspace community, they can restrict their children?s access to it.
网络空间的特别之处在于。它把我们从必须遵循大多数人制定的规则而生活的政府专制中解放出来。在民主国家中,少数派和少数人的偏好往往会遭到排挤,无论他们是少数民族和文化还是少数人拥有的个人爱好。但是在网络空间,任何大小和类别的社区都能繁荣昌盛;在网络空间,用户自由选择自己的社区,而不是依据地域的偶然因素将社区强加给用户。这种选择的自由赋予主持网络空间的规章制度以一种道德权威,而这种权威是陆地环境中的规章制度所不具备的。大多数人被困于自己出生的国家无法脱身。然而如果你不喜欢某个网络社区的规章,你可以退出,要么喜欢它,要么离开它。同样的,如果父母们不喜欢某个网络社区的规章,他们可以限制自己孩子与它接触。
What?s likely to happen in cyberspace is the formation of new communities, free of the constraints that cause conflict on earth. Instead of a global village, which is a nice dream but impossible to manage, we?ll have invented another world of self-contained communities that cater to their own members? inclinations without interfering with anyone else?s. the possibility of a real market-style evolution of governance is at hand. In cyberspace, we?ll be able to test and evolve rules governing what needs to be governed------intellectual property, content and access control, rules about privacy and free speech. Some communities will allow anyone in; others will restrict access to members who qualify on one basis or another. Those communities that prove self-sustaining will prosper (and perhaps grow and split into subsets with ever-more-particular interests and identities). Those that c an?t survive----either because people lose interest or get scared off-----will simply wither away.
可以预料在网络空间将会形成不受那些在地球上导致冲突的种种约束的新社区。我们不会建立一个地球村,那只是一个美好却难以实现的梦想。我们将创造另一个由许多能满足其成员的意愿同时不妨碍他人意愿的独立自主的社区组成的世界。社区管理方式的真正市场化演变即将成为可能。在网络空间,我们将能够通过试验和改进规章制度来管理那些需要管理的——知识财产·内容和限制·关于隐私和言论自由的规则。有些社区将允许任何人加入,有些将只允许符合这种或那种条件的成员加入。那些能够自我维持·自我完善的社区将会昌盛起来(而且也许会壮大分裂为一个个依据更加具体的兴趣和身份而建立的分社区)。而那些不能生存的社区——或是因为人们对它们失去了兴趣或是因为人们被吓跑了——则将渐渐萎缩并消失。
15.In the near future, explorers in the cyberspace will need to get better at defining and identifying their communities. They will need to put in place-----and accept-----their own local governments,just as the owners of expensive real estate often prefer to have their own security guards rather than call in the police.but they will rarely need help from any terrestrial government.
在不远的将来,网络空间的探索者将需要更好的明确和识别他们的网络社区。他们将需要建立并接受他们自己的社区政府,就像高档房产的主人常常宁愿要自己的保安人员而不愿叫警察一样。不过他们将不太会需要来自陆地政府的帮助。
16.In the end, our society needs to grow up. Growing up means understanding that there are no perfect answers, no all-purpose solutions, no government-sanctioned safe havens. We haven?t created a perfect society on earth, and we won?t have one in cyberspace either. But at least we can have individual choice-----and individual responsibility.
最后,我们的社会需要成熟起来。成熟意味着认识到不存在完美的答案,不存在能够满足各类人群需要的解决方法,不存在政府批准的安全避风港。我们还没有在地球上建立一个完美的社会,我们同样也无法在网络空间建立一个完美的社会。但是至少我们可以拥有个人的选择和个人的责任。
Translation
[A]1. 美国人渴望新的未开发地带,在那里他们可以摆脱任何束缚,自由自在。Americans hanker after new frontiers where they can be free of any constraints and be themselves.
2. 令年轻人神往的正是在网上冲浪时获得的那种自由的感觉。
What captures young people?s imagination is precisely the sense of freedom they get while surfing the Internet.
3. 不论种族、文化和社会经济地位,每个人都能够在网络空间找到一个由与自己志趣相投的人所组成的社区。
Regardless of their race, culture and socioeconomic status, everyone can find a community of likeminded people in cyberspace.
4. 虚拟社区宁愿由自己而不是由世俗政府建立和执行社区行为规范。
Virtual communities prefer to set and enforce community standards by themselves rather than by the terrestrial government.
5. 网络空间类似于现实世界,包括从购物中心、学校区到红灯区等各种各样的地方。Cyberspace is akin to the terrestrial world, which includes various places ranging from shopping malls, school districts to red-light zones.
6. 只有满足自己成员需要的网络社区才能够繁荣兴旺。
Only cyberspace communities that cater to the needs of their members will prosper.
7. 随着远距离通信技术的发展,世界不久将联合成为一个地球村。
With the development of telecommunications technology, the union of the world into a global village is at hand.
8. 免费下载知识财产在互联网使用者中十分普遍。
It is prevalent among Internet users to download intellectual properties for free.
9. 互联网上的讨论组主持人的职责是防止广告和无关信息进入论坛。
The job of the moderator of a discussion group on the Internet is to keep out advertisements and unrelated materials of the forum.
10. 言论自由的拥护者往往贸然断定任何形式的政府管理都将妨碍他们的自由。Advocates of free speech tend to jump to the conclusion that any form of government regulation will interfere with their freedom.
Unit5 An Alpine Divorce 1.John Bodman was a man who was always at one extreme or the other. This probably would have mattered little had he not married a wife whose nature was an exact duplicate of his own. 1约翰?伯德曼是一个常常走极端的人。这本来应该没什么,但可惜,他妻子的性格整个儿是他的翻版。 2.Doubtless there exists in this world precisely the right woman for any given man to marry and vice versa; but when you consider that one human being has the opportunity of being acquainted with only a few hundred people, and out of the few hundred that there are but a dozen or less whom one knows intimately, and out of the dozen, one or two close friends at most, it will easily be seen, when we remember the number of millions who inhabit this world, that probably, since the Earth was created, the right man has never yet met the right woman. The mathematical chances are all against such a meeting, and this is the reason that divorce courts exist. Marriage at best is but a compromise, and if two people happen to be united who are of an uncompromising nature there is bound to be trouble. 2毋庸置疑,对于任何一个男人,这世上总会有一个相当合适的女人能和他成家,反之亦然。但是如果你考虑一下:每个人仅有机会结识几百个人而已,在这几百个人之中熟知的只有那么干几人甚至更少,在这十几个人之中又最多只有一两个知心朋友;别忘了,居住在这世上的人有多少个百万,因此显而易见:自地球存在以来,这合适的男人极有可能从来就没有遇到过他那个合适的女人。。从概率上来讲,这样相遇的机会微乎其微,这也正是离婚法庭存在的原因。婚姻充其量不过是一种妥协,而如果恰好两个个性上互不妥协的人结合了,那就肯定会有麻烦。 3.In the lives of these two young people there was no middle distance. The result was bound to be either love or hate, and in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Bodman it was hate of the most bitter and egotistical kind. 3对于两个这样的年轻人来说,生活没有什么中间点,其结局注定要么是爱,要么是恨,而就伯德曼夫妇而言,他们到头来有的是那种最刻骨、最傲慢的恨。 4.In some parts of the world, incompatibility of temper is considered a just cause for obtaining a divorce, but in England no such subtle distinction is made, and so until the wife became criminal, or the man became both criminal and cruel, these two were linked together by a bond that only death could sever.' Nothing can be worse than this state of things, and the matter was only made the more hopeless by the fact that Mrs. Bodman lived a blameless life, while her husband was no worse than the majority of men. Perhaps, however, that statement held only up to a certain point, for John Bodman had reached a state of mind in which he resolved to get rid of his wife at all hazards. If he had been a poor man he would probably have deserted her, but he was rich, and a man cannot freely leave a prospering business because his domestic life happens not to be happy. 4在这世界上的某些地方,夫妻性情不合就能够成为离婚的正当理由,但是在英格兰,并没有如此微妙的区分,所以除非妻子犯罪,或丈夫犯罪并且为人残暴,否则两者的婚姻关系将一直维系下去,直至死神将他们分开。没有什么比这种事情更糟糕的了,而更令人绝望的是伯德曼太太为人无可厚非,而她丈夫也并不比一般男人差。然而,也许上面的表述只能说在某种程度上是正确的,因为约翰?伯德曼已经忍无可忍,下定决心不管付出什么代价也要摆脱他的妻子。如果他是个穷人,也许他会抛弃她,但是他很富有,而一个人不能因为家庭生活碰巧不幸就轻易放弃一份蒸蒸日上的事业。 5.When a man's mind dwells too much on one subject, no one can tell just how far he will go.
2019考研英语一真题翻译参考答案及解析 考研历年真题一定要用好,研究好。结合大纲和真题来选择辅导用书是最明智的。本文带大家回顾2019考研英语一真题翻译参考答案及解析: Part C Directions: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points) It was only after I started to write a weekly column about the medical journals, and began to read scientific papers from beginning to end, that I realised just how bad much of the medical literature frequently was. I came to recognise various signs of a bad paper: the kind of paper that purports to show that people who eat more than one kilo of broccoli a week were 1.17 times more likely than those who eat less to suffer late in life from pernicious anaemia. (46) There is a great deal of this kind of nonsense in the medical journals which, when taken up by broadcasters and the lay press, generates both health scares and short-lived dietary enthusiasms. Why is so much bad science published? A recent paper, titled “The Natural Selection of Bad Science”, published on the Royal Society’s open science website, attempts to answer this intriguing and important question. It says that the problem is not merely that people do bad science, but that our current system of career advancement positively encourages it. What is important is not truth, but publication, which has become almost an end in itself. There has been a kind of inflationary process at work: (47) nowadays anyone applying for a research post has to have published twice the number of papers that would have been required for the same post only 10 years ago. Never mind the quality, then, count the number. (48) Attempts have been made to curb this tendency, for example, by trying to incorporate some measure of quality as well as quantity int o the assessment of an applicant’s papers. This is the famed citation index, that is to say the number of times a paper has been quoted elsewhere in the scientific literature, the assumption being that an important paper will be cited more often than one of small account. (49) This would be reasonable if it were not for the fact that scientists can easily arrange to cite themselves in their future publications, or get associates to do so for them in return for similar favours. Boiling down an individual’s o utput to simple metrics, such as number of publications or journal impacts, entails considerable savings in time, energy and ambiguity. Unfortunately, the long-term costs of using simple quantitative metrics to assess researcher merit are likely to be quite great. (50) If we are serious about ensuring that our science is both meaningful and reproducible, we must ensure that our institutions encourage that kind of science. 46-50参考答案及解析:
研究生英语系列教材上unit1-原文+翻译
TRAITS OF THE KEY PLAYERS 核心员工的特征 What exactly is a key play? 核心员工究竟是什么样子的? A “Key Player” is a phrase that I've heard about from employers during just about every search I've conducted. 几乎每次进行调查时,我都会从雇主们那里听到“核心员工”这个名词。 I asked a client —a hiring manager involved in recent search — to define it for me. 我请一位客户——一位正参与研究的人事部经理,给我解释一下。 “Every company has a handful of staff in a given area of expertise that you can count on to get the job done. “每家公司都有少数几个这样的员工,在某个专业领域,你可以指望他们把活儿干好。 On my team of seven process engineers and biologists, I've got two or three whom I just couldn't live without,” he said. 在我的小组中,有七名化工流程工程师和生物学
家,其中有那么两三个人是我赖以生存的,”他说, “Key players are essential to my organization. “他们对我的公司而言不可或缺。 And when we hire your company to recruit for us, we expect that you'll be going into other companies and finding just: 当请你们公司替我们招募新人的时候,我们期待你们会去其他公司找这样的人: the staff that another manager will not want to see leave. 其他公司经理不想失去的员工。 We recruit only key players.” 我们只招募核心员工。” This in part of pep talk intended to send headhunters into competitor's companies to talk to the most experienced staff about making a change. 这是一段充满了鼓动性的谈话,目的是把猎头们派往竞争对手的公司去游说经验丰富的员工们做一次职业变更。
Text1 Habits are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not ch In but habit rules the unreflecting herd,” William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. the ever-changing 21st century, even the word “habit” carries a negative connotation. So it seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. 习惯是件有趣的事情。我们无意识间养成了一些习惯,我们的大脑是自动运 转的,轻松进入熟知套路所带来的不自觉舒适状态。“这并非选择,而是习惯控 制了那些没有思想的人”,这是威廉?华兹华斯(William Wordsworth)19世纪时 说的话。在现在这个日新月异的21世纪,甚至习惯这个词本身也带有负面涵义。 因此,在创造和革新的背景下来谈论习惯,似乎显得有点矛盾。 But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. But don’t bother trying to kil off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads. 但大脑研究人员发现,当我们有意识地培养新的习惯的时候,我们创建了平 行路径,甚至是全新的脑细胞,可以让我们的思路跳转到新的创新轨道上来。但 是,不必费心试图摈弃各种旧习惯;一旦这些程序惯例融进大脑,它们就会留在 那里。相反,我们刻意培养的新习惯会创建平行路径能避开原来那些老路。 “The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder,” says D Markova, author of “The Open Mind” and an executive change consultant for Professional Thinking Partners. “But we are taught instead to ‘decide,’ just as decide is to kill off president calls himself ‘the Decider.’” She adds, however, that “to all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.” 大学英语
2020年考研英语一翻译真题及答案解析 2017年考研英语考试已经结束!出国留学考研网在考后第一时间 为大家提供2017年考研英语一翻译真题及答案解析,更多考研资讯 请关注我们网站的更新! 2017年考研英语一翻译真题及答案解析 英语1文章明显偏学术,今年考察英语语言发展情况,文章选的英国文化教育协会,是雅思出题组织者。它的主席叫大卫格兰多的 一本书,叫《英语下一步》,他讲到整本书意思是英语将走向何处。 很有意思的是主席曾经这本书里说到了中文将以后成为世界语言。英语1考题作为序言部分作为考题。 今年英语1总体难度和去年相比,刚刚过去2016年考研题稳中 有一点点上升,没有任何难句出现,只是长句。我认为稳中上升。 第一句话有一个单词难一点,(英文),英语全球性主导地位。翻译里没有考过。(英文)主导地位考过,但是是阅读里经常出现,翻 译都是可以的。这句话基本意思说到了,说英语的人进一步扩大, 这是一个(英文)状语从句。后面跟着有迹象表明,是主句,表明的 迹象是什么呢?从句,英语全球性主导地位在可预见地位将减弱。 fade(英文)略微有难度。我对考研阅读没有那么熟,但是2000 年出现过。如果按照新东方老师关注的精读方法来学习有很好的效果。 第二句话讲到了大卫这个人分析,会终结一些人的(英文),他们或许会认为英语全球性地位是如此稳定。他们有一次词,是(英语) 如此稳定,英国年轻一代不需要额外学习其他的语言能力。但是会 终结年轻一代的能力。 但是组织的时候要注意一下,有些人认为英语语言地位如此稳定,英国年轻人没有必要学习什么,但是大卫的观点会终结这些人的想法。语序颠倒一下会更好。
研究生英语系列教材综合教程(上)课文翻译 Unit 1 核心员工的特征 1核心员工究竟是什么样子的?几乎每次进行调查时,我都会从雇主们那里听到“核心员工”这个名词。我请一位客户——一位正参与研究的人事部经理,给我解释一下。“每家公司都有少数几个这样的员工,在某个专业领域,你可以指望他们把活儿干好。在我的小组中,有七名化工流程工程师和生物学家,其中有那么两三个人是我赖以生存的,”他说,“他们对我的公司而言不可或缺。当请你们公司替我们招募新人的时候,我们期待你们会去其他公司找这样的人:其他公司经理不想失去的员工。我们只招募核心员工。” 2这是一段充满了鼓动性的谈话,目的是把猎头们派往竞争对手的公司去游说经验丰富的员工们做一次职业变更。他们想从另一家公司招募核心员工。然而,每家公司也从新人中招人。他们要寻找的是完全一样的东西。“我们把他们和公司顶级员工表现出的特质进行对照。假如他们看起来有同样特征的话,我们就在他们身上赌一把。”只是这样有点儿冒险。 3“这是一种有根据的猜测,”我的人事经理客户说。作为未来的一名员工,你的工作是帮助人事部经理降低这种风险,你需要帮助他们认定你有潜力成为一名核心员工。 4特征1:无私的合作者 职业顾问和化学家约翰·费策尔最早提出了这个特征。关于这个特征,人们已经写了大量的文章。它之所以值得被反复谈及,是因为这一特征是学术界和企业间最明显的差别。“这里需要合作,”费策尔说,“企业的环境并不需要单打独斗,争强好胜,所以表现出合作和无私精神的员工就脱颖而出了。在企业环境中,没有这样的思维方式就不可能成功。” 5许多博士后和研究生在进行这种过渡的过程中表现得相当费力。因为生命中有那么长一段时间他们都在扮演一个独立研究者的角色,并且要表现得比其他年轻的优秀人才更出色。你可以藉此提高在公司的吸引力:为追求一个共同的目标和来自其他实验室和学科的科学家们合作——并且为你的个人履历上的内容提供事迹证明。这个方法,加上你在描述业绩时开明地使用代词“我们”,而不是“我”,能使公司对你的看法从“单干户”转变成“合作者”。更为有利的是,要在你实验室内部,以及在和你们实验室合作的人们之间,培养一个良好声誉:一个鼓励并发动合作的人——还要保证让那些会接听调查电话的人们谈及你的这个品质。 6特征2:紧迫感 唐-豪特是一位给aaas.sciencecareers@org 网站论坛频繁写稿的撰稿人。他之前是一名科学家。许多年前他转向了企业,并一直做到高级管理的职位。他在3M公司一个部门负责策略和商业开发工作,这个部门每年上缴的税收高达24亿多美元。他就是一个重视紧迫感的人。 7“一年365天,一周7天,一天24小时,生意始终在进行,那意味着一年365天,一周7天,一天24小时,竞争也同样在进行,”豪特说,“公司取胜的方法之一就是要更快地到达‘目的地’。这就是说,你不仅要把所有能支持公司快速运转的功能都调动起来,而且还得知道如何决定‘目的地’是哪里。这样,不仅对那些行动快速的人们,也对那些思维敏捷,并有勇气按自己的想法行事的人们都提出了要求。这需要全公司各部门的运作,而不仅仅是管理部门的工作。” 8特征3:风险容忍度 企业要求员工能承受风险。“一名求职者需要表现出仅凭不准确、不完整的信息就做出决策的能力。他或她必须能接纳不确定因素并冒着风险做出结论,”一位客户在职业描述中写道。 9豪特赞同这一说法。“商业成功通常有这样一个特质:那就是能接受不确定因素和风险——个人的,组织上的和财务上的。这就让许多科学家感到不适应,因为学术上的成功其实是依靠认真而严谨的研究。更进一步说,伟大的科学常常是由找寻答案的过程和答案本身两者同时来定义的。因此科学家们往往沉迷于过程。在企业里,你需要了解过程,但最终你会迷上答案,然后根据你认为该答案对你的企业所具有的意义来冒风险。像这样敢冒风险是一套技能组合,是所有雇主在他们最好的员工身上所寻找的东西。” 10风险容忍度的另外一个要点是求职者对失败的承受度。失败很重要,因为这表示你不怕冒险。所以各家公司总会寻找有可能犯错误并敢于承认错误的求职者。大家都知道如何谈论成功——或者当他们在寻找工作的时候应该知道。但很少有人乐意谈论失败,更少有人知道如何从失败的边缘吸取教训和获得经验。“对我的企业来说,求职者需要坦然地谈论他或她的失败,而且他或她需要有真正的失败经历,而不是特意为面试而杜撰的东西。如果做不到的话,那么这个人冒的风险还不够,”豪特说。 11特征4:善于处理人际关系 瑞克·李奇在迪科德遗传工程公司从事业务拓展。李奇最近才转行到企业,做业务方面的工作。我向他咨询这个重要特征,是因为在他的新业务角色中,人际沟通能力在成功和失败之间发挥着很大的作用。“科学家毕生都在积累知识,培养技术上的敏锐感,”他说,“但为企业工作需要完全不同的东西——人际交往的能力。想转行到企业界的科学家们必须优先考虑他们的社会关系资源而不是技术资源。对一个以前一直根据专业知识水平被评价的人来说,突然之间要根据他的人际交往能力来评价他,真是十分令人恐惧。” 12然而,如果认为只有像李奇那样的生意人才需要熟练的人际沟通技巧,那就错了。事实上,我所遇见的在企业工作的核心费工们之所以取得成功,很大程度上是因为他们能够与公司上下各种各样的人共事。 Unit 4 爱和情感连系 1爱,对于人类的生存是不可或缺的。它既是一种情感,又是一种行为。家庭通常是我们最早和最重要的爱和
Unit 1 Genetically modified foods -- Feed the World? If you want to spark a heated debate at a dinner party, bring up the topic of genetically modified foods. For many people, the concept of genetically altered, high-tech crop production raises all kinds of environmental, health, safety and ethical questions. Particularly in countries with long agrarian traditions -- and vocal green lobbies -- the idea seems against nature. 如果你想在某次晚宴上挑起一场激烈的争论,那就提出转基因食品的话题吧。对许多人来说,高科技的转基因作物生产的概念会带来诸如环境、健康、安全和伦理等方面的各种问题。特别是在有悠久的农业生产传统和主张环保的游说集团的国家里,转基因食品的主意似乎有悖自然。 In fact, genetically modified foods are already very much a part of our lives. A third of the corn and more than half the soybeans and cotton grown in the US last year were the product of biotechnology, according to the Department of Agriculture. More than 65 million acres of genetically modified crops will be planted in the US this year. The genetic is out of the bottle. 事实上,转基因食品已经成为我们生活重要的一部分。根据农业部的统计,美国去年所种植玉米的1/3,大豆和棉花的一半以上都是生物技术的产物。今年,美国将种植6500多万英亩的转基因作物。基因妖怪已经从瓶子里跑出来了。 Yet there are clearly some very real issues that need to be resolved. Like any new product entering the food chain, genetically modified foods must be subjected to rigorous testing. In wealthy countries, the debate about biotech is tempered by the fact that we have a rich array of foods to choose from -- and a supply that far exceeds our needs. In developing countries desperate to feed fast-growing and underfed populations; the issue is simpler and much more urgent: Do the benefits of biotech outweigh the risks? 但是,显然还有一些非常现实的问题需要解决。就像任何一种要进入食物链的新食品一样,转基因食品必须经过严格的检验。在富裕的国家里,由于有大量丰富的食品可供选择,而且供应远远超过需求,所以关于生物技术的争论相对缓和一些。在迫切想要养活其迅速增长而又吃不饱的人口的发展中国家,问题比较简单,也更加紧迫:生物技术的好处是否大于风险呢? The statistics on population growth and hunger are disturbing. Last year the world's population reached 6 billion. And by 2050, the UN estimates, it will probably near 9 billion. Almost all that growth will occur in developing countries. At the same time, the world's available cultivable land per person is declining. Arable land has
Unit 1 ●翻译:(黑体的汉字表示与教师用书不同,斜体的汉字表示重点翻译不要遗漏) https://www.wendangku.net/doc/c34999904.html,passion, wisdom, altruism, insight, creativity—sometimes only the trials of adversity can foster these qualities, because sometimes only drastic situations can force us to take on the painful process of change. (Para.6) 慈悲、智慧、无私、洞察力及创造力——有时只有经历逆境的考验才能培育这些品质,因为有时只有极端的情形才能迫使我们去承受痛苦的改变过程。 2.In that moment, our sense of invulnerability is pierced, and the self-protective mental armor that normally stands between us and our perceptions of the world is torn away. (Para.12) 在事情发生的那一瞬间,我们的安全感被冲破了,平时处于我们与我们对世界的种种看法之间的自我保护的精神盔甲被剥离了。 3.They say that material ambitions suddenly seem silly and the pleasures of friends and family paramount—and that the crisis allowed them to recognize in line with their new priorities. (Para.14) 他们说物质追求突然间变得很无聊,而朋友和家庭带来的快乐变得极为重要,他们还说危机使他们能够按照这些新的优先之事来重新认识生活。 4.They cycle through the same sequence of sensations as do trauma survivors: self–loss, confusion and, finally, a new sense of mastery. (Para.16) 他们和经历创伤的幸存者所反复经历的感觉过程一样:自我失落,困惑,最后获得一种新的驾驭感。 ●复述: 1.Still, actually implementing these changes, as well as fully coming to terms with a new reality, usually takes conscious effort. (Para.13) It is necessary for people to take effort consciously in order to fulfill these changes and compromise with a new reality. 2.They are surprised by their own strength, confident that they can handle whatever else life throws at them. (Para.15) They are surprised by their power and they are confident that they can deal with whatever they experience through life. 3.The sleep deprivation and the necessity of putting aside personal pleasure in order to care for an infant mean that people with newborns are more likely to be depressed and find their marriage on the rocks. (Para.17) It is likely for parents with new-born babies to feel depressed and to feel difficult to maintain their marriage because they have been deprived of sleeping hours and they have to put aside their personal pleasure in order to care for the baby. Unit 4 ●翻译: 1.Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling th rough long stretches of prose. (Para.1) 过去总是不费什么劲儿就能让自己沉浸在一本书或者一篇长文章中,被其中的叙述或不同的论点深深吸引。我还会花数小时徜徉在长篇散文中。 2.Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info–thickets — reading and writing emails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening
2020年考研《英语一》翻译真题答案(跨考版) 文章来源于An Outline of American History,《美国历史纲要》,是一本历史学方面的专著。 46 We don’t have to learn how to be mentally healthy; it is built into us in the same way that our bodies know how to heal a cut or mend a broken bone. 【句子结构】分号连接的两个并列句,第一个并列句主干是 We don’t have to learn ,how引导宾语从句做learn的宾语,第二个 并列句主干是it is built into us in the same way,that引导定 语从句修饰先行词way,that定语从句中主干是our bodies know,how引导宾语从句做know的宾语。 【参考译文】我们无需刻意去了解学习才能让心理更健康,它正 如我们的身体知道怎样让伤口愈合和修复骨折一样,是根植于我们体 内的/是我们与生俱来的水平。 47 Our mental health doesn’t really go anywhere; like the sun behind a cloud, it can be temporarily hidden from view, but it is fully capable of being restored in an instant. 【句子结构】分号连接的两个并列句, 第一个并列句主谓结构, 很简单,第二个并列句中,like the sun behind a cloud是状语, but 连接两个并列分句,包括短语be hidden from 和be capable of. 涉及被动语态的翻译方法。 【参考译文】我们的心理健康并不是真的消失不见,就像云朵背 后的太阳,它也许暂时被遮挡,但是它也能够在瞬间重焕光芒。 48 Mental health allows us to view others with sympathy if they are having troubles, with kindness if they are in pain, and with unconditional love no matter who they are.
Unit One 旅行通用语 1 数十年来,法兰西语言研究院一直捍卫着法语的尊严。几年前,由于法国人对英语词汇的入侵非常敏感,该机构颁布了净化法语的法律,其内容甚至涉及专业术语。就拿波音747 (Boeing747)来说吧,现在法国人必须用法语词gros-porteur;表示出租的leasing也变成了credit-bail。此类例子不胜枚举,触及生活的方方面面。法国总统希拉克很可能会继续加大力度,直至连英特网internet和字节流(信息组)byte stream之类的词也找到相应的法语新词。哎,真不知未来的法语会变成什么样。 2 不幸的是(或许并非不幸),英语没有受到如此的保护。在美国,随处可见严重偏离英国标准英语的美式英语。“honour”普遍被写成“honor”,“night”也变成了“nite”。许多词意广为人知的英式英语单词被赋予新的解释,交流也变得有些困难。比如说,汽车的行李箱“boot”变成了“trunk”(一个在英国指代树干的单词);引擎盖“bonnet”变成了“hood”(英式英语中的风帽);老式婴儿尿布“nappy”变成了“diaper”(英式英语中的菱格花纹织物);婴儿小外套“matineejacket”也变成了“vest”(英国的内衣汗衫)。显而易见,两国英语曾同出一源,而如今却将两国彼此隔离。当然了,按美国人的观点,是英国人的语言表达出了问题。 3 实际使用中,甚至还有更糟的英语呢!只要你在外国旅游并注意一下菜单、海报、旅店、甚至当地日常生活中的英语,就可以证明过去的标准用语在这些地方已变得不伦不类,让我详例如下: 4 旅行作家波洛?菲利浦曾不惜笔墨地渲染自己的几番经历,我觉得该有更多的读者了解一下。他提及某份荷兰的灯泡目录,上面对用户承诺有“a speedy execution’——快速处死(毫无疑问,想表达的应是“送货及时”)。此外,东柏林的一个衣帽间告示要求客人“please hang yourself here”——请在这儿吊死自己(本想说的是“将衣帽挂在这儿”)。只希望没人会真的从字面上去理解。 5 我还可以补充一些多年周游世界时的亲身经历。例如,奥斯坦德的一家精品店正在宣扬其货品立意新颖,却用了“revolting new ideas”,即“令人作呕的立意”。孟买的几家糕饼屋也鼓吹自己是“No.1 loafers”,目口头号游手好闲者,可是其本意是要宣称自己的糕饼全市第一。 6 我并不知道基督教影响如此之广,直到我在香港看到一位牙医的宣传:“我们由最新的循道宗信徒拔牙”,这儿的“Methodists”(循道宗信徒)显然应改为“methods”,即“方法”。 7 恐怕没人能确定这些误用实际上是体现了英语的普及还是仅仅反映了局限于地方的习惯用法。但可以确定的是,海法医学会绝对应该阻止其会员挂这样的铜招牌:“妇女及其它疾病的专家”。 8 看来旅店对多语种告示颇为青睐,希望它们会有利于人们更好地使用现代化设施。没有它们,旅店就会显得沉闷而缺乏效率。然而,在布鲁塞尔的一家旅店中,这条电梯告示只会令毫无防范的房客更愿意爬楼梯:“使用电梯时,请按要去楼层的按钮。若更多人进入电梯,请分别按各自要去楼层的按钮。电梯会按楼层的字母顺序,依次送客。没复位的按钮显示着接收到的要去楼层的指令”。伊斯坦布尔的一则旅店告示则没这么复杂:“想要客房服务时,请开门喊叫‘客房服务’”。至少那儿的客人不用对付也许经常失灵的电子设备。 9 在土耳其,人们对于“直言不讳”的喜爱在一个已远近闻名的安卡拉导游册中得到了充分体现。导游册这样招揽顾客:“来我们餐馆吧,你会在欧洲救护车中享用中东风味美食”(显然这儿的救护车“ambulance”应为氛围“ambience”)。而另一家瑞士餐馆的菜单也同样吸引人:“我们的葡萄酒绝人他念”。(“our wines leave nothing to hope for'’一语双关,可本意显然是“我们的葡萄酒美味绝伦”)。 10在东欧,奥匈帝国时期的老牌大旅馆从未放弃过礼节。一则旅馆房间告示上写着“诚邀尊贵的客人在12点到14点之间占客房女服务员的便宜”(take advantage of t he chambermaids)。然而,这可能造成意外的交通阻塞。最近的一次莫斯科画展也未必能让偶尔光顾者欣然前往,根据其告示,“画展将展出俄罗斯艺术家的300幅作品,他们中的大部分人在过去十年中已被处死了”。 11 曼谷一家洗衣房的广告词邀请来访的顾客“留下你的衣服,尽情享受吧!”就像是鼓励人们在这座远东娱乐首府干些出格之事。