Everyday English(38)

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Everyday English(38)

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (C) gives a thumbs up after ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange.President George

W. Bush and Wen will try to buff up the new shine on Sino-US relations as they lock horns on Taiwan,niggling trade spats and North

Korea.(AFP/Stan Honda) 词汇： thumb n.拇指 buff v.擦亮，抛光 shine n.光泽, 光亮 lock horns:争吵；有摩擦

If you are locking horns with someone, it means you are having a serious fight or argument with someone. When dears are in their mating season, male dears are fighting with their horns for a female dear. And you can imagine the locked horns

when they are actually fighting. That is where this idiom comes from.

niggle vi.为琐事费心, 吹毛求疵 spat n.口角, 小争吵

Survey: Saddam Killed 61,000 in Baghdad

【参考译文】调查结果表明：萨达姆在巴格达杀了6.1万人

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein 's government may have executed 61,000 Baghdad residents, a number significantly higher

than previously believed, according to a survey obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

【参考译文】巴格达，伊拉克－美联社本周一获得的调查结果表明，萨达姆侯赛因执政期间杀害的巴格达居民达61000人，

远远超过外界所认为的数目！

【讲解】execute. To put to death, especially by carrying out a lawful sentence. 处死，尤指执行法律判决。如：execute a murderer

处死一凶手。我们所说的就地正法, 当场处决可以这样来表示be summarily executed.

The bloodiest massacres of Saddam's 23-year presidency occurred in Iraq's Kurdish north and Shiite Muslim south, but the Gallup

Baghdad Survey data indicates the brutality extended strongly into the capital as well.

【参考译文】外界一直认为，萨达姆执政23年来最血腥的屠杀是在伊拉克库尔德人的北部居住地区和什叶派穆斯林聚居

的南部地区。

但是盖洛普巴格达调查的数据却显示，就连首都巴格达都未能幸免。

【讲解】bloody在这里指的是Bloodthirsty.嗜血的，残忍的。bloody murder.血腥的谋杀 ，在美俚语里是一败涂地的意思。

有时bloody可以作为副词来加强语气，特，太，忒，非常。It's bloody wonderful! 就是非常好！Lend you $5? Not bloody likely!

借给你5美元？没门儿！

Massacre refers to the act or an instance of killing a large number of human beings indiscriminately and cruelly. 大屠杀，这个词在口语指彻底击败。如：A wholesale massacre of jobs.大批冗职裁员。

Brutality refers to the state or quality of being ruthless, cruel, harsh, or unrelenting. Willful brutality.有意做出的粗野动作。

The U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq has said that at least 300,000 people are buried in mass graves in Iraq. Human rights

officials put the number closer to 500,000, and some Iraqi political parties estimate more than 1 million were executed. Without

exhumations of those graves, it is impossible to confirm a figure. Scientists told The Associated Press during a recent investigation

that they have confirmed 41 mass graves on a list of suspected sites that currently includes 270 locations. Forensic teams will

begin to exhume four of those graves next month in search of evidence for crimes against genocide.

【参考译文】此前，美国占领军声称至少有30万民众死于活埋，人权组织却声称有近50万人被杀，

而一些伊拉克政党则表示有100万人死于萨达姆政权之手。当然，如果不对集体坟墓进行挖掘的话，这些数字就无法得以证明。

科学家向美联社透露说，最近对大型坟墓的270处可疑地点进行调查中，其中41处已经得到证实。下月，法医专家将对其中四处进行挖掘，

寻找萨达姆政权灭绝种族的大屠杀的犯罪证据。

【讲解】exhume, To remove from a grave, disinter. 掘出从坟墓中挖出、挖掘，另外也可以用来指从默默无闻的状态中发现出来。

Genocide means the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group. 种族屠杀有组织地、

蓄意地进行的对整个国家、种族、政治或文化群体的灭绝.

任何一门语言都是丰富多彩的，因为它来源于生活。英文中的slow on the draw就是这样一个片语。draw 在这里指“拔出(枪、刀等武器)

的动作”。历史上，在美国西部的枪手对决中，拔枪速度是影响胜负的关键因素，因此 draw 便用来比喻“反应的灵敏度”，

slow on the draw 的意思便是“反应迟钝缓慢”。如： I don’t get the reason why I am slow on the draw sometimes. (译文：我不知道为什么我有时会反应迟钝。)

再聪明的人也有反应迟钝的时候，当人们have a cold 的时候更是如此。If you say that someone is slow on the draw, you mean

that he or she is not quick to understand something new. 相反，如果某人反应很快速，就用 be quick on the draw来表示。

We shouldn’t ridicule him, who is a little slow on the draw. (译文：我们不应该嘲笑他反应迟钝。)

人反应迟钝的时候有时看起来真有点不可思议。比如戴在手上的watch却让你到处找，有时明明戴着的眼镜到处都找遍了，

甚至费劲九牛二虎之力也找不到。对了，“到处都找遍了”在英文中有一个相应的表达：search high and low, 如： I searched high and low for that book, but I couldn't find it. (译文：我到处找那本书，可就是找不到。)

high and low 除了字面的“高低贵贱、盛衰、浮沉”等意思外，还有“到处”的意思。从字面上看，片语search high and low的意思是

“上下搜寻，查找”，引申意义为“为了寻找某物而到处都找遍了”。 To search high and low is to search something everywhere

and in most cases the search is failed.

After I had searched high and low for my glasses, my workmate told me that it was just wearing on my nose. (译文：在我到处找我的眼镜之后，同事才告诉我它正在我手里。)

结束语：有时在知识抢答比赛中，人们为了表明自己并不反应迟钝(not slow on the draw)，主持人的提问刚一结束他们就急忙

的寻找按钮。然而由于过度紧张，他们到处找遍了也没有找到按钮 (search high and low)，以致怠误了时机。

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