| 001论坛群 | 在线人数：全论坛133人，本论坛25人 001论坛系统 |
Cold shoulder,故意对人冷淡,表现出轻视和讨厌的态度。
Hot air,夸夸其谈,吹牛。
今天我们要给大家介绍的两个习惯用语是以两个对立的字组成的,第一个是冷,也就是英文里的cold,第二个是热,也就是英文里的 hot。让我们首先来讲以cold这个字组成的俗语。Cold shoulder. 大家都知道,cold 就是冷。Shoulder 就是肩膀。那末,cold shoulder从字面上来解释就是:冷的肩膀。但是,Cold shoulder 作为俗语的意思就是:故意对某人很不友好,显示出讨厌或轻视某人的态度。现在,我们先来举个例子。
例句-1：I always thought Mary and I were friends. But when I saw her at the supermarket today and said ’hello,’ she gave me the cold shoulder -- she looked right past me like I wasn’t even there.
这个人说:我老是把玛丽看作是我的朋友。但是,今天我在超级市场看到她,还跟她打招呼了。可是,她看都没看我一眼,就好像我没在那儿一样,对我可冷淡咯。
请大家注意这个例句的最后一句话:she looked right past me like I wasn’t even there. Like I wasn’t even there 这样说,严格来讲,并不符合语法的要求,但是美国人却都那末说。这证明口语里习惯的说法并不一定符合语法的规定,这是经常出现的现象,希望大家在学习的过程中注意这一点。
美国许多有钱和有地位的人都参加各种很高雅的俱乐部,这些俱乐部每年收很高的会员费,但是会员也可以享受很多俱乐部的设备和服务,例如网球场和游泳池等。一般,这类俱乐部都有他们自己的餐厅,会员可以带朋友一起去吃饭,可以享受特殊的优待。下面这个例句是一个人被邀请参加某一俱乐部的聚会,由于他不属于那一阶层的人,所以受到了冷遇。他说:
例句二：It was the first time I got invited to that fancy club. People at the party were polite to me, but one of the waiters gave me the cold shoulder when I asked for a drink. Let me tell you, I’ll never go to a place like that again.
女:这个人说:我被邀请去那种高级俱乐部还是第一次。每个参加聚会的人倒是对我很客气。可是当我问一个服务员要一杯饮料的时候,他对我特别冷淡。我告诉你,我这辈子再也不去那种地方了。
刚才我们给大家介绍了和冷,也就是 cold 这个字有关的俗语,下面我们给大家讲一个由热,也就是 hot 这个字组成的俗语。Hot air. Hot 就是热,air就是空气。Hot air合在一起就成了热空气。按字面上这么解释是完全对的,但是,我们现在在讲俗语,所以hot air就不是热空气了。那末,hot air作为俗语做什么解释呢? Hot air 作为俗语就是夸夸其谈,吹牛。我们来举个例子吧。这是一个人在评论那些竞选当官的候选人。
例句三：Most candidates make promises during a campaign to win voters’ support. But many promises are nothing but hot air. After the candidates get elected, they tend to forget most of the things they promised to achieve.
女:这人听起来对政界人士缺乏信任,他说:大多数候选人在竞选过程中都做出各种保证,以赢得选民的支持。但是,他们说的好多都是夸夸其谈,等到当选后,他们往往把自己的保证忘了。
在美国,无论是竞选总统,还是竞选地方官员,候选人都得表明自己对某些问题的观点。为了获得选民的拥护,他们往往在一些群众关心的问题上迎合群众的需要,以这种方式来争取更多的选票。但是,等到当选以后,不管是由于客观条件,或是来自政治圈子里的压力,他们在竞选过程中所做的保证不能得以实现。这种改变有的完全是合理的,是出于大众利益的,是应该的。但是也有些是在于达到某些政治目的。这样当然会引起一些选民的不满。
爱吹牛的人并不少见。下面这个例子就是两个朋友在说他们在一次聚会上遇见的一个人。
例句四：That man at the party yesterday didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. He blew a lot of hot air about health and nutrition. He didn’t know that both of us have been practicing medicine for more than thirty years.
这个人说:昨天聚会上那个人真不知道他在说什么。他夸夸其谈地说了好多关于健康和营养的事。他可不知道我们两行医已经三十多年了。
各位听众,今天我们讲了两个习惯用语,第一个是和冷,也就是cold这个字有关的习惯用语:Cold shoulder. Cold shoulder是故意对人冷淡,表现出轻视和讨厌的态度。我们今天讲的第二个习惯用语是和热,也就是和hot这个字有关的。Hot air.Hot air是指夸夸其谈,吹牛。
「美国习惯用语」第六十二讲 (2千字)(topsky 2007-1-29 3:02 阅读 124)eyes pop out，当一个人在感到很惊奇的时候，眼睛睁的大大的。
not even bat an eye，眼睛都不眨一下。
美国英语里有不少成语和俗语和“眼睛”，就是英语里的eyes这个字有关的。今天我们就来给大家介绍两个由eyes这个字组成的习惯用语。
人们在碰到突然的、出乎意料之外的事的时候往往会睁大了眼睛表示惊奇。美国人在形容这种情景时经常说: "Somebody's eyes pop out."其实，中国人在形容某人感到十分惊奇时也经常说：那个人的眼珠子都快掉出来了。这和英文里的eyes pop out很相似。现在我们来举个例子吧：
例句-1: "My wife's eyes popped out when she saw the necklace I bought her for our twentieth wedding anniversary."
这个人说：“在我们庆祝结婚二十周年时，我给我的妻子买了一条项链。当她看到那条项链时，她眼睛睁得可大了。”
大家可能都知道，美国的离婚率是很高的，正因为如此，人们对结婚周年是很重视的，特别是逢十的结婚周年，如二十周年、三十周年等，一般当事人都要举行盛大庆祝活动。
Have your eyes popped out还可以用在其他场合，下面就是一个例子：
例句-2: "I hadn't seen my niece since she was a child, so when she visited town the other day my eyes popped out -- she's grown into a very beautiful young woman."
这个人说：“我还是在我侄女是个孩子的时候见过她。自从那时起，我一直就没有机会见到她。因此，那天她突然来这儿访问使我感到十分惊奇。她已经长大，变成一个很漂亮的年轻少女了。”
有的人不管发生什么大事，似乎从来也不会感到惊奇，他们总能保持镇静，连眼睛都不眨一下，这在英文里就是：Not even bat an eye。Bat这个字的一个解释是眨眼睛。可是，在这种情况下，它经常是以否定的形式出现的。举一个例子就更能说明这个问题了：
例句-3: "Bill didn't even bat an eye when they told him he had just won the lottery. He just shrugged and said, 'Well, I guess I can use the money.'"
这句话的意思是：“当比尔听到他中了头奖的时候，他连眼睛都没有眨一下，只是耸耸肩膀说：“行，我想这些钱是会有用的。”
中了头奖不表现激动，这已经很不容易了。要是一个人在赌钱的时候输了钱，还要保持镇静的话那就更不容易了，可是比尔就能做到。请你们听一听和他一起赌钱的人是怎么说的：
例句-4: "Bill lost five thousand dollars on this one poker hand, but he didn't even bat an eye--he just shrugged and said, 'Easy come, easy go. Come on and deal the next hand!'"
这个人说：“比尔在仅仅打一付扑克牌游戏的过程中就输了五千美元。可是他眼睛都没眨一下。他只是耸耸肩说：“来得容易，去得容易。快，发牌吧。”
以上我们给大家介绍了两个由eyes这个字组成的习惯用语。第一个是eyes pop out。Eyes pop out是指当一个人在感到很惊奇的时候，眼睛睁的大大的。我们今天讲的另一个和eyes有关的俗语是not even bat an eye。Not even bat an eye是眼睛都不眨一下的意思。
[美国习惯用语」第六十二讲就到里。欢迎下次再一起来学习美国习惯用语。再见。
Tories unleash attack ads on Dion (5千字)(topsky 2007-1-29 11:10 阅读 37)OTTAWA — The Conservatives are taking direct aim at Stéphane Dion with a series of attack ads portraying the new Liberal leader as weak, indecisive and full of hot air on the environment.
But Liberals counter that the negative ad campaign, unveiled on the eve of Parliament’s resumption Monday, is proof the Tories are afraid of Dion and have nothing positive to say about their own environmental record.
“They’re running scared,” Michael Ignatieff, Dion’s deputy leader, said in an interview.
Ignatieff said the ads suggest Prime Minister Steven Harper’s Tories are gearing up for an election, despite their professed aversion to sending Canadians to the polls only one year after the last vote.
Dion predicted the attack ads will fail.
“Mr. Harper has nothing positive to say about his own record,” the Liberal chief told CBC Newsworld.
“So being unable to say anything positive about him(self), he wants to spend all this money to try to attack me in a very negative way. And it will backfire. Canadians will not be impressed by that.”
Dion said he’s proud of his record as a former environment minister and billed himself as “a man of integrity, a man of loyalty, a man of honesty.”
The Tories, however, are clearly hoping to define Dion in a more negative light before he gets the chance to define himself. The three television ads unveiled Sunday constitute a frontal attack on his reputation as a straight-shooter and champion of the environment.
“We want to demonstrate that the only thing green about Stéphane Dion is his inexperience as a leader,” said Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney, who briefed reporters on his party’s strategy.
The ads use footage from last fall’s Liberal leadership debates to make the point, allowing former rivals among the Grits to deliver the criticism.
One ad shows Ignatieff repeatedly chastising Dion on the previous Liberal government’s failure to meet the Kyoto targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“We didn’t get it done,” Ignatieff says.
In another ad, the Tories use a clip of Dion plaintively reacting to Ignatieff’s criticism of his environmental record: “Do you think it’s easy to make priorities?”
It concludes with the tag line: “Leaders set priorities. Leaders get things done. Stéphane Dion is not a leader.”
A third ad repeatedly uses a clip of Dion saying that Liberals need to be returned to power as soon as possible, interspersed with reminders that Dion was at the cabinet table during the $1-billion gun registry “boondoggle,” the sponsorship scandal and the broken promise to scrap the GST.
“Let’s not go back,” the ad concludes.
The three English-language ads will begin airing immediately, including during next weekend’s Canadian broadcast of the Super Bowl, and will be followed by a second series of French ads.
Kenney would not reveal how much money his party is spending on the campaign. But he suggested the Tories can easily afford a pre-election spending binge, boasting that they have raised five times as much money from individual donors as the Liberals.
Kenney insisted the minority Conservative government doesn’t intend to engineer its own defeat this spring in order to catch the Liberals and their new leader unprepared. He said the ads are simply a “recognition that an election could be around the corner” and blamed Dion for agitating for a vote.
Since Dion’s come-from-behind leadership victory on Dec. 2, the Liberals have enjoyed a modest bounce in opinion polls. They are now running roughly neck-and-neck with the Tories but neither party is in position to win a majority government.
Harper admitted as much in an interview with The Canadian Press in which he adamantly denied that he’s angling for an early campaign.
“What would be the point of an election, especially if it would just result in another minority anyway?” said the prime minister.
Kenney dismissed suggestions the Tories are afraid of Dion, insisting that the new Grit leader has enjoyed one of the briefest honeymoons on record and has flip-flopped on a host of issues.
Nevertheless, it’s evident the ads are part of a Tory attempt to neutralize the environment as potential make-or-break election issue. Poll suggest the environment has skyrocketed to the top of the list of voters’ concerns.
After a first year in which his government pooh-poohed alarmist warnings about climate change and cancelled a number of emission reduction programs, Harper has appointed an aggressive new environment minister, John Baird, and has begun restoring some the programs.
Now the Tories are going after Dion, who made tackling climate change the centrepiece of his leadership campaign.
“Stéphane Dion’s free ride on the environment is over,” Kenney declared.
Dion, who was environment minister for only 18 months, acknowledged that the previous Liberal government was slow to adopt a plan to meet its Kyoto targets — in part because it met with stiff opposition every step of the way from Harper’s party.
But he said he finally had a plan ready to go last winter, only to have Harper win the election and cancel it. He said Harper is taking action now because he needs to “patch a problem he has in the polls,” not because he truly believes in the need to combat climate change.
「美国习惯用语」 第一百六十三讲 (3千字)(topsky 2007-1-29 11:12 阅读 41)
这文章出现两个习惯用语。 (181字)(topsky 2007-1-29 11:23 阅读 35)一是"hot air"，见第一百六十三讲；
另一个是"neck and neck"， 见第三十八讲，是指比赛双方齐头并进，竞争十分紧张，不分上下。
| 001论坛软件版权所有:001.com.cn和world001.com与本软件有关事项请与001联系 |