新标准大学英语综合教程3课文与翻译
while he repaired a buggy or built a table. 看着自己修马车，或是打桌子。
要是孩子问―爸爸，您是干什么的？‖，爸爸
3 When a child asked, \kind of work do you do, 3.
Daddy?\his father could answer in terms that a child could 会用孩子能理解的语言回答他，比如：―我是修蒸come to grips with, such as \fix steam engines\or \make 汽机的‖，或者―我是做马项圈的‖。 horse collars\
4.
可是，现在修蒸汽机或是打桌子的父亲很少
4 Well, a few fathers still fix steam engines and build tables, 了，绝大多数人都不干这个了。 现在，大多数的but most do not. Nowadays, most fathers sit in glass buildings 父亲坐在有玻璃外墙的大楼里，做着孩子们根本doing things that are absolutely incomprehensible to children. 理解不了的工作。 当被问道―爸爸，您做什么工The answers they give when asked, \作？‖时，他们的回答往往让孩子大惑不解。 do, Daddy?\mystifying to a child.
5.
―我是楼盘顾问。‖ ―我做市场研究的。‖ ―我是
5 \sell space.\\do market research.\\am a data 数据处理员。‖ ―我在公关部工作。‖ ―我是系统分processor.\systems analyst.\析师。‖ 这些解释对小孩子来说肯定是毫无意义Such explanations must seem nonsense to a child. How can he 的。 他怎么可能想象得出一个人是怎么去分析系possibly envision anyone analyzing a system or researching a 统和研究市场的呢？ market?
6.
即使是那些从事市场研究工作的成年人也很
6 Even grown men who do market research have trouble 难想象公关部的人每天都在做些什么，一名普通visualizing what a public relations man does with his day, and it 的系统分析师肯定不知道楼盘顾问在店里都干些is a safe bet that the average systems analyst is as baffled about 什么，就好像楼盘顾问对分析系统的工具也一窍what a space salesman does at the shop as the average space 不通一样。 salesman is about the tools needed to analyze a system.
7.
在普通的日常工作中，没有什么东西是手工
7 In the common everyday job, nothing is made any more. 制作出来的了。 现在什么东西都是机器生产的。 Things are now made by machines. Very little is repaired. The 也极少有东西需要修理。 机器生产出来的东西很machines that make things make them in such a fashion that 容易散架，而这样的东西要拿去修理的话费用非they will quickly fall apart in such a way that repairs will be 常高，不值得。 于是消费者被怂勇着把那东西扔prohibitively expensive. Thus the buyer is encouraged to throw 了，再买个新的。 事实上，机器是在生产垃圾。 the thing away and buy a new one. In effect, the machines are making junk.
8.
少数跟这些机器能搭上点关系的人当然可以对好追根究底的孩子说：―爸爸是制造垃圾的‖。
8 The handful of people remotely associated with these 但是，大多数劳动者离生产垃圾的现场很远，根machines can, of course, tell their inquisitive children \本感受不到自己对垃圾制造业的贡献。 那这些人makes junk\Most of the workforce, however, is too remote 到底在做些什么呢？ from junk production to sense any contribution to the industry. What do these people do?
9.
想想美国城市里一栋典型的12层玻璃外墙的楼房吧。 在这栋楼里，没有什么被生产出来，
9 Consider the typical 12-story glass building in the typical 也没有什么在被修理着，连楼房本身也用不着修。 American city. Nothing is being made in this building and 这栋楼本来就是被当成一件垃圾建造起来的，所nothing is being repaired, including the building itself. 以当大楼变得破旧了，就会被当作垃圾扔掉，在Constructed as a piece of junk, the building will be discarded 原地盖一栋新的垃圾楼。 when it wears out, and another piece of junk will be set in its place.
10. 即便如此，大楼里仍然挤满了自以为是在工作的人。 一天中任何一个时间里，大概会有三分
10 Still, the building is filled with people who think of 之一的人在打电话。 电话里说的大都与文件有
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新标准大学英语综合教程3课文与翻译
themselves as working. At any given moment during the day 关，因为整栋楼里几乎每一个人都在为文件而忙perhaps one-third of them will be talking into telephones. Most 前忙后。 of these conversations will be about paper, for paper is what occupies nearly everyone in this building.
11. 大楼里的有些工作需要有人在文件上写字。 有些人要把字工整地打成文件，有些人要看文件，
11 Some jobs in the building require men to fill paper with 并在空白处作批注。 有的人要复印文件，有的则words. There are persons who type neatly on paper and persons 在递送文件。 有的人把文件存档，有的则往外取who read paper and jot notes in the margins. Some persons 文件。 make copies of paper and other persons deliver paper. There are persons who file paper and persons who unfile paper.
12. 有些人寄文件，有些则打电话让别人把文件送过来。 有的人打电话打听文件在哪儿，有的则
12 Some persons mail paper. Some persons telephone other 在商讨文件。 在最豪华的办公室里，有的文件被persons and ask that paper be sent to them. Others telephone to 审议通过了，有的则被驳回。 ascertain the whereabouts of paper. Some persons confer about
paper. In the grandest offices, men approve of some paper and 13. 电梯里从早到晚都挤满了把文件从一层楼送
到另一层楼的年轻人，以及拿着文件的重要人士，disapprove of other paper.
他们正要和其他重要人士商讨文件。
13 The elevators are filled throughout the day with young men
carrying paper from floor to floor and with vital men carrying 14. 一个孩子怎么能理解这一切呢？ 也许他父亲身居要职，午餐时都要和别人讨论文件。 试想paper to be discussed with other vital men.
他带着儿子来上班，让孩子对他的工作有一些概
14 What is a child to make of all this? His father may be so 念。 孩子能看到些什么呢？ eminent that he lunches with other men about paper. Suppose he
他读文件。 brings his son to work to give the boy some idea of what work 15. 他父亲打电话让别人送文件过来，
可能他会冲着文件发火，或是在文件上用红笔愤is all about. What does the boy see happening?
怒地打个记号。 他打电话告诉另一个人，说中午
15 His father calls for paper. He reads paper. Perhaps he 要一起吃饭讨论有关文件的问题。 scowls at paper. Perhaps he makes an angry red mark on paper.
He telephones another man and says they had better lunch over 16. 午饭时，他们讨论文件。 回到办公室，父亲让人把文件一式五份重新打印好给另一个人，那paper.
个人要把这份文件和去年一式三份的那份文件作
16 At lunch they talk about paper. Back at the office, the 比较。 father orders the paper retyped and reproduced in quintuplicate,
在这之后如果有小朋友问他―你爸and then sent to another man for comparison with paper that 17. 可以想象，
爸是做什么的？‖，这个可怜的孩子和他的小伙伴was reproduced in triplicate last year.
都会对这种神秘的工作百思不得其解。 他会怎么
17 Imagine his poor son afterwards mulling over the mysteries 回答呢？如果他的观察力不够敏锐，他也许会说，of work with a friend, who asks him \―我说不清。‖ 如果他非常善于观察，他会回答说，What can the boy reply? \―我想，是做跟制造垃圾相关的工作吧。 跟每个observant. Or if he is, \人都一样。‖ junk, I think. Same as everybody else.\
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新标准大学英语综合教程3课文与翻译
Our supposedly exciting times are really 我们所谓的激动人心的时代其实很rather dull 乏味
There's nothing new about our obsession “我们对新奇事物的过度迷恋其实并
with the new, says Dominic Sandbrook.
1 We live in a world of unprecedented, dazzling change.
不新奇”，多米尼克 ? 桑德布鲁克如
是说。
我们生活在一个变化的世界里，这种变化前
Thanks to globalization, national frontiers are collapsing around 1.
us, while technological innovations are fundamentally reshaping 所未有，让人眼花缭乱。 正是因为全球化，国之our lives in ways we can barely comprehend. In the early 21st 界限正逐渐瓦解，同时，技术革新正以我们几乎century, history is moving more and more quickly; there has 理解不了的方式从根本上重塑着我们的生活。 在never been anything quite like it, and things will never be the 21世纪初期，历史的变迁日益加速；这种变迁史same again.
无前例，一切都和从前不一样了。
不管怎么说，这就是我们耳熟能详的套话。
2 So run the clichés, anyway. But it is only our obsession 2.
with novelty, ignorance of deeper historical patterns and 可是，我们有这种论调正是缘自我们对新奇事物arrogant insistence on our own importance that leads us into this 的过度迷恋，对深层次历史模式的无知，以及我kind of talk. Hoping to prove our superiority over the 们的狂妄自大。 为了证明相比于先辈们的优越generations that preceded us, we boast that we live in a period of 性，我们夸耀说自己生活在一个前所未有的变革unprecedented change. Yet there is a good case that we do not, 期。 但是，有一个很好的例子可以用来证明，实in fact, live in very interesting times at all.
际上我们并没有生活在多么有趣的时代。
就以全球化为例。其拥护者美国人托马
3 Take the example of globalization, which, according to its 3.
American champion, Thomas Friedman, is a new \斯 ? 弗里德曼认为，全球化是一个全新的―国际体system\geopolitics and 系‖，它影响着―全世界几乎每一个国家的政治、economics of virtually every country in the world\In a 环境、地缘政治以及经济‖。 但是，如果把它置historical context, however, the word is almost entirely 于历史的环境中，这个词几乎毫无意义可言。 有meaningless. What society has not been, to some extent, 哪个社会不曾或多或少地被全球化过呢？ globalized?
4.
例如，罗马帝国完完全全是一个多民族、多
4 The Roman Empire, for example, is nothing if not a 文化、跨国界的实体，仅在它的首都就有几十种multi-ethnic, multicultural, transnational entity, with dozens of 不同的语言和宗教相互竞存。 古罗马人不但从埃different tongues and religions competing in the capital alone. 及进口谷物，还向中国和印度购买香料以及器皿，Not only did the Romans import grain from Egypt, they bought 同时，他们出口陶器到其他的国家，甚至卖到了spices and vessels from China and India, and hoards of the 遥远的本地治里。 我们可能会为班加罗尔的呼叫pottery they sold in return have been found as far away as 服务中心而兴奋不已，殊不知最先到达那里的还Pondicherry. We may get excited about call centres in 是古罗马人，他们可是常为天下先的。 Bangalore—but as so often, the Romans were there first.
5.
尽管过去的几十年间生活中方方面面的变化
5 And while it is easy to point to areas of life that have 随处可见——比如西方妇女的地位的变化——但changed in the last few decades—the status of Western women, 我们更应该指出现代生活稳定的一面。 1945年以for example—it makes more sense to point out the sheer 来西方世界没有发生过大规模的战争，多数国家stability of modern life. Most national borders have remained 的国界线半个多世纪以来都保持着原样。 虽然我unchanged for more than half a century, while the Western 们总喜欢吹嘘自己的现代性，但是，今天的英国，world has avoided major wars since 1945. And although we like 虽然有美丽的郊野景色和高耸的摩天大楼，对于to boast of our modernity, Britain today, with its physical
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新标准大学英语综合教程3课文与翻译
landscape of suburbs and skyscrapers, would hardly have 20世纪四五十年代的人来说，一点都不新奇。 surprised the typical citizen of the 1940s and 1950s.
6.
尽管我们对互联网，还有iPod十分热衷，但
6 For all our enthusiasm about the Internet and the iPod, 我们并非生活在一个伟大的技术革新的时代。 大meanwhile, we simply do not live in an age of great 多数日常生活中用到的技术——比如烤面包机、technological innovation. Most of the technologies we use every 水壶、中央供暖系统、电视、飞机、火车、汽车day—toasters and kettles, central heating and televisions, planes ——都是几十年前就问世了。 虽然推介互联网的and trains and automobiles—were invented decades ago. And 广告铺天盖地，可一个残酷的事实是：我们大多for all the hype about the Internet, the brutal truth is that most of 数人都用互联网来做一些非常传统的事情，无论us use it to do remarkably old-fashioned things, whether 是购书还是给朋友写信。 总是有人跟我们说互联ordering books or writing to friends. We are always being told 网―打开‖了一个新的世界，然而，令人吃惊的是，that the Internet has \staggering 90 90％的网络流量都发生在本地网。 per cent of all web traffic is local.
7.
和几十年前人们对变化的普遍期待相比，如
7 The pace of change looks even slower when we compare it 今变化的速度还是要慢一些。 例如，当斯坦利 ? 库with typical expectations only a few decades ago. When Stanley 布里克的电影《2001：星际漫游》于1968年上映Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968, for 时，人们似乎有理由想象有一天将乘着泛美航空example, it seemed reasonable to imagine that people would be 的航班飞往空间站，和有知觉的电脑聊天，并且catching Pan-Am flights to space stations, talking to sentient 住在月球上。 但是1968年去看过这部电影的那computers and living on the Moon. But the cinema-goers of 些观众们要是知道直至现在他们还住在米尔1968 would have been deeply disappointed to realize that in fact 顿 ? 凯恩斯，看着《杀机四伏》时，肯定会大失所they would be living in Milton Keynes and watching Midsomer 望的。 Murders.
8.
我们追求新奇事物也不是什么新奇的事。
8 Even our neophilia is nothing new. \do not know how 1944年，乔治 ? 奥威尔就忿忿不平地抱怨说：―我often I have met with the statements that 'the aeroplane and the 不知道听过多少遍?飞机和收音机消除了距离‘，还radio have abolished distance' and 'all parts of the world are now 有?世界各地如今都是互相依存着的‘这样的话‖。 interdependent,'\George Orwell grumbled in 1944. No doubt 假如他还活着，毫无疑问，他也同样会为现在相he would find such views equally irritating today.
类似的观点而气恼不已的。
虽然婴儿潮那代人喜欢吹嘘说他们经历的变
9 And although the baby-boom generation like to brag that 9.
they have experienced greater change than any other, we do not 化比其他时代的人都要多，但我们用不着向前追need to look back very far for much more sweeping 溯太远就能找到更为巨大的变化。 试想一个英国transformations. Imagine an Englishman born in 1865 into a 人，他于1865年出生在一个乡村里，那儿人们还rural landscape of horses and carts, freezing winters and limited 骑着马，驾着马车，冬日里冰天雪地的，视野很horizons. If he lived until he was in his eighties or nineties, 有限。 假设他能活到80多岁或是90多岁（这完which is perfectly plausible, he would see the advent of cars, 全有可能），他就能亲眼目睹汽车、飞机、收音aeroplanes, radios, telephones, motion pictures, domestic 机、电话、电影、家庭电器、大众普及教育及妇electricity, mass education and votes for women—a world not a 女选举权这些事物的诞生——这样的世界与当今million miles from our own. By the time he died, in other 社会差距并不大。 换句话说，到他去世前，他所words, he would have seen changes the magnitude of which we 看到的变化之大，是我们难以想象的。 我猜想，can hardly imagine. And to him, I suspect, our supposedly 在他看来，我们自认为激动人心的时代也许真的exciting times would seem really rather dull.
很乏味。
10 \curse, 10. 中国有句咒语：―但愿你生活在有趣的时代，‖the implication being that interesting times bring chaos and 意思是紧随有趣时代而来的是混乱和焦虑。 果真
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