2012-04-13 23:35
Unit 1-2-3
1、Despite her wealth and position, Linda still remained modest/unassuming about herself and lived in the same one-storeyed house as before. 尽管琳达拥有的财富和地位，但她仍然保持谦虚，而且住在以前的平房里。 2、People living on the island still observe the customs which arose from/stemmed from circumstances that have long since changed. 生活在岛上的人们仍然遵守着习俗，这种习俗起源的环境已经改变了。 3、One of the good things about the antique dealer is that you can always rely on his unerring/infallible ability to spot a fake. 你永远可以依靠古董商准确无误的发现一个赝品，这是个很好的事情。 4、It was impossible to tell whether the young man developed/had taken to a liking for his pretty cousin or not.
这是不可能告诉你，这个年轻人是否喜欢他的漂亮的表妹。
5、George was an experienced and smart car salesman, and he could recognize an easy potential/prospect customer when he saw one.
乔治是一个经验丰富的智能汽车推销员，他可以轻易地识别潜在客户。 6、When I asked him why he hadn’t come to the meeting, he gave the feeble/flabby excuse that he’d forgotten what time it was.
当我问他为什么没来开会，他给了一个不靠谱的借口说他已经忘记会议时间了。 7、Most times/More often than not when I make the effort to visit Katharine, I wonder why I have even bothered.
往往不是当我努力去拜访凯瑟琳，我想知道我为什么甚至懒得去。
8、Disappointingly, he was not a man of good character, and we found that he was as deceitful /devious as his adversary was ruthless.
令人失望的是，他不是一个好品质的人，我们发现他跟他狡猾的对手一样冷酷。 9、Her rich experience in language teaching gave her a slight advantage/tipped the scales in her favor and she finally got the long-cherished position.
她丰富的语文教学经验给了她一个微弱的优势，使她终于得到了梦寐以求的位置。 10、After working with Jane for many years, we knew each other very well and established a good relationship/rappot.
和简共事多年，我们知道对方非常好，建立了良好的友谊。
11、My husband, because of his own professional commitments, goes to Cambridge every week.
我的丈夫，由于他的职业目标，每周去剑桥。
12、While looking for the address book, Mr. Hailey came across some of his old love letters in his wife’s drawer.
黑利先生在寻找地址簿时，在他妻子的抽屉里发现了一些他的旧情书。 13、Mrs. Bush, head of the intelligence department, is blessed with immense talent and boundless energy.
Bush夫人，情报部门的负责人，具有极高的天赋和无限的活力。
14、The audience are deeply impressed by the leading character of the feature film that looks squarely at social problems. 电影中领导正视社会问题给观众留下深刻的印象。
15、The Prime Minister has decided to take advantage of his popularity in the opinion polls, and called a snap election for next month. 首相决定利用他在这次民意测验的名声，在下个月举行一次快速选举。 16、The singer is very popular with the general public, but she is often regarded as being too flamboyant on stage. 这个歌手很受大众欢迎，但她往往在舞台上过于浮夸。
17Mr. Potter was not only quick at turning a phrase, but also ready with glib promises.
伯特先生不仅巧舌如簧，而且承诺不可靠。
18、Malaysia and Indonesia rely on open markets for forest and fishery products. Conversely, some Asian countries are highly protectionist.
马来西亚和印度尼西亚依靠为林业和渔业产品开放市场。相反，一些亚洲国家实行高度的保护。
19、According to legal provisions, the properties will either revert to the original owners or else be sold at auction. 根据法律规定，这些财产将归还给原主，否则就拍卖。
20、The measures are little more than window dressing thatwill fade fast once investors take a hard look at them.
这个方法有些过于粉饰了，如果投资者咨询看看就会消失的很快。 Unit 2
课后习题：
一，Vocabulary(词汇：使用原文中的词汇替换斜体字体)
1, Professor Smith is much in demand as a lecturer in the United States as well as at universities all over Europe. 史密斯教授在美国比在欧洲各大学更受欢迎。
( sought after 寻求，追求，原型为：seek after )
2, After her baby was born, the woman sold her motorbike and settled happily into domestic life.
宝宝出生后，这位妇女卖掉摩托车，过上了幸福的家庭生活。 (domesticity 家庭生活)
3, The same requirement obtains for any applicant wishing to study the natural sciences, regardless of who they are.无论他们是谁，都会满足申请人的相同的需求，提供给他们学习自然科学的愿望。 (holds true for 提供给...)
4, Dr. Elwood said the belief that milk could be harmful was based on the assumption that fat causes heart disease. Elwood博士深信：假设脂肪能引起心脏病的话，那么牛奶也将是有害的。 (premise 前提，假设，设想)
5, John’s brother Jack seemed like a quiet, sensible and harmless sort of guy —someone you couldn’t object to.约翰的弟弟杰克似乎喜欢那种安静的、明智的、不伤害人的人---就是你不反对的那种人。 (inoffensive 无害的，不伤人的)
6, Our camp is so far from the highway that we feel separated from the world when we are there.
我们的阵营远离高铁，如同当我们在这里的时候，与世界隔绝一样。 (shut off 分开，分离，隔绝)
7, In my opinion, true patriotism lies in putting the interests of one’s country above everything including one’s own life. 我认为：真正的爱国精神是（存在于）国家利益高于一切，包括个人生活。 (consists in 在于，存在于)
8, A real love song is more appropriate for this occasion than a rubbishy song cooked up as a commercial gimmick. 比起那些作为编造商业阴谋的垃圾歌曲，纯洁的爱情歌曲更适合这个场合。 (trashy 无用的，无价值的，垃圾的)
9,After a series of difficult negotiations, the two superpowers
eventually agreed to a reciprocal reduction in nuclear weapons. 经过一系列复杂谈判后，最终两个超级大国达成共识：减少核武器。 (mutual相互的，彼此的，共有的)
10, Soldiers often say that the worst thing about fighting is not the moments of terror, but all the hours of tedium in between. 通常士兵认为：打架最坏的事情不是恐惧，而是整过过程中彼此间的沉闷。 (boredom 厌烦，沉闷，无聊) 二，选择题：
1，Probably the physics of the mid-nineteenth century was not as spectacular as that of the C. Preceding在...之前，前面的 and
following periods, but its theoretical advances were nevertheless very impressive.十九世纪中叶，物理学与前、后时期相比，并不是鼎盛时期，但是它的理论仍然给人留下深刻的印象。
A. posterior 后面的，尾部的 B. Overwhelming 势不可挡的，巨大的
C. Preceding 在先的，前面的 D. Potential 潜在的，有可能的 2，We will encourage every school to B. enhance 提高，增加，加强its character, ethos and areas of special interest within a more flexible National Curriculum framework. 在更加灵活的国家课程体系当中，我们鼓励所有学校提高品质、气质和学生的兴趣。
A. Facilitate 使..便利 B. Enhance 提高，增加，加强 C. Acquaint 使熟悉，使了解 D. install 安排，安置
3， D. In pursuit of 追求，寻求 her dreams, Lynne traveled the world, leaving her 2-year-old son Stephen in the care of babysitters. 为了追求梦想，Lynne找人照看2岁的儿子，去环球世界，
A. In spite of 虽然，尽管 B. In case of 万一，如果，防备 C. In place of 代替 D. In pursuit of 追求，寻求
4，His deep A. Intuition 直觉 , subtle approach, sharp analytical capacities and broad clinical knowledge made him a brilliant clinician. 他很强的直觉力，微妙的方式，敏锐的分析能力，广阔的临床知识，这些使得他成为医术精湛的临床医生。
A. Intuition 直觉 B. Revelation 揭露，显露
C. Hypothesis 假设，前提 D. Thrill 强烈的兴奋，恐惧或快乐感 5，Western medicine, A. rooted in 来源于 science and practiced by people with internationally accepted medical degrees, is only one of many systems of healing. 西药是许多康复体系中的一种，它来源于科学和实践。 A. rooted in 来源于 B. originated from 起源于 C. trapped in 使困于 D. indulged in 沉溺于
6，The computer acts as a substitute for human friends, perhaps, but the human-computer may also bring about the end of existing
human-human relationships. 计算机扮演代替人类朋友的角色，人类迷恋计算机可能会带来结束人与人之间的关系。
A. apathy 冷漠 B. Intensity 强烈，剧烈
C. Concept 概念，观念，想法 D. Infatuation 迷恋，热恋
7，She had something to tell him, something so important that even this unexpected opportunity for B. Consummation 完成，完美 of their desire must take second place. 她告诉他一件重要的事情，这件事情甚至是带给他梦想成真的第二次意外机会。
A. appetite 欲望，胃口 B. Consummation 完成，完美 C. Intimacy 亲密，密切 D. Potentiality 潜力
8，Such an approach forces managers to communicate with one another and helps break down 拆分，失败 rigid departmental boundaries. 这个方法迫使经理与另外的人沟通，帮助破坏顽固分子。 A. break down 拆分，失败 B. stand for 代表
C. set off 出发，引起 D. pass over 忽视，置之不理
9，He knew that he had one more duty to perform before he allowed himself to succumb to his Craving 渴望 for rest.他明白：在他休息之前，有责任先完成（这项任务）。
A. orientation 方向，目标 B. Disgust 厌恶 C. Craving 渴望 D. Objection 反对
10，To be honest, I felt rather embarrassed by Jane’s C. coyness 假装害羞的 and flirting during her interview 坦诚的说，在面试期间，简假装害羞的调情，使得我很尴尬。
A. Spontaneousness 自然的 B. Anticipation 预期 C. coyness 假装害羞的 D. Sensation 感觉 Unit 3
Hilarious ：开心的
provide for ：提供给，为...提供生活费 dissolute ：放荡的 society ：相伴，交往。社会
vindictive ：恶意的，图谋报复的 saving your presence ：恕我冒昧 levied ? on ：征收，征税 unfailing ：永恒的，无穷无尽的
brought home to ：使（某人）相信/明白某事 wash my hands of ：涉及 A:
1、We were invited to a fancy-dress party at Alison’s last Sunday and everyone of us had a good time.上周日我们参加艾莉森服装表演，大家都很开心。————hilarious开心的，十分有趣的，欢闹的
2、Bob died of cancer last year, leaving his wife two young daughters; so she had to give them all the things necessary for life.去年鲍勃死于癌症，给妻子和两个女儿留下生活必需品。————provide for为...提供生活费
3、Flynn is a charming fellow, still handsome though dissipated, and always eager to have a good time 虽然弗林是个迷人且帅气的家伙，但是他闲游浪荡，总渴望度过美好时光。————dissolute放荡的
4、It was a very long journey from York to London and Ross was grateful for John’s company.从纽约到伦敦是很长一段旅途，罗斯因此而非常感激约翰的陪伴。————society相伴，交往
5、After being fired for spending too much time on the phone, the vengeful secretary spread vile rumors about the company. 恶狠狠的大臣打完电话通知救火后，散布公司谣言。————vindictive恶意的，图谋报复的
6、“Some of the members of your organization are unscrupulous schemers, sorry to say this when you’re here.”组织成员中的一部分是不择手段的谋士，你们在这里，恕我冒昧直言。————saving your presence恕我冒昧 7、The judge imposed a $3 million fine on the paper mill for polluting the river and its environment. 造纸厂污染河流和环境，法官向造纸厂征收300万罚款。——levied ? On征收，征税
8、One of the good things about Amanda is that you can always rely on her inexhaustible enthusiasm. 阿曼达身上的优质品质之一是：你一直可以依靠她的无穷无尽的热情。——unfailing永恒的，无穷无尽的
9、At the forum they showed a documentary which made all the people present aware of the seriousness of the financial situation. 在讨论会上，他们展示了一部纪录片，使得在场的所有人员意识到了目前财政赤字的情况。——brought home to使（某人）相信/明白某事
10、If you are going to regard every suggestion I make as a criticism, then I will stop being involved in the whole matter. 如果你接收我的批评建意，那么我就不在卷入此事当中。——wash my hands of 涉及 C: pay给予
wore带，wear的过去式，固定搭配 ascribed ... to把。。。归于 qualms不安，疑虑 falls to落到。。。责任
black sheep败类，败家子，害群之马 amendments修正案
making a point of重视，强调 philandering with玩弄，调情 in the gutter穷困潦倒
11、Hard training will （pay 给予） you richly when it comes to the actual competition.
当实际竞争来临的时候，刻苦训练使得你更富有。
12、At the news conference, the foreign minister （wore带，wear的过去式，固定搭配）a confident smile and answered all the questions raised by the journalists.
在新闻发布会上，外交部长面带自信的微笑，回答了记者的所有提问。 13、 After years of research, scholars have finally （ascribed ... To把。。。归于）this anonymous play （to）Christopher Marlowe.
进过几年研究，最终学者们把匿名游戏给予了Christopher Marlowe。 14、 Most parents have occasional （qualms不安，疑虑） about whether they’re doing the best thing for their children. 大部分家长偶尔会担心：为孩子做的事情是否最好。
15、 It （falls to落到。。。责任） me to thank you for all you have done for the association in the last few years.
感谢你近年来与我交往和为我所做的一切，使得我有很大的责任心。
16、 I never heard anyone in my village mention my uncle Tony — I think he was a bit of a （black sheep败类，败家子，害群之马）。 我从未听村庄中的任何人提及过我的叔叔托尼，--我认为他有点败类。 17、 The （amendments修正案）that she suggested for discussion were based on the most recent medical research 她建议讨论的修正案是基于近期的医学研究。
18、 Rosa used to be quiet and introverted, but now she is （making a point of重视，强调） being sociable. 罗莎曾经安静含蓄，但是她现在随和。
19、 Mary broke off her engagement to John when she found him
often （philandering with玩弄，调情）the pretty girls in his office. 当玛丽发现约翰在办公室经常玩弄漂亮女孩，她决定中断婚约。
20、 Instead of ending up in jail or （in the gutter贫困潦倒）, she was remarkably successful and became one of the wealthiest people in Britain today.
她现在很成功，而不是在狱中结束生命或者穷困潦倒，如今是英国最富有的人之一。
unit4-5-6 Unit 4 A
1.By the time he finally agreed to give an interview, the story was already a piece of boring news. stale 无味
2.Coastal food chains are based on organic debris from the marshes, and many of the fish and shellfish nourished offshore will return to the marshes to breed. detritus 碎片
3.Faced with shrinking tourism, airlines tried to lure travel-shy people back with enticing offers and packages and prices so low they could hardly afford to stay home. shriveling 皱缩
4. The new law permits the dissolution of a marriage on the ground of incompatible differences or incurable insanity. irreconcilable 矛盾
5.I got to work so late this morning I had to fabricate some excuse about my car breaking down. cook up 虚构
6.Some parts of her writing took the form of a regular diary, scribbled in an unformed, childish hand. scrawled 乱涂
7.Mr. Selby told his private secretary that when he was out on the road, office calls had to be sent on to the cellular phone in his car. forwarded 潦草
8.In what is rightly called the Age of Information, suppliers of information have an inevitable influence on society and government. purveyors 承办商
9.He could eat anything, no matter how loathsome or indigestible, and once eaten, the juices of his stomach extracted the last least particle of nutriment. vile 讨厌的
10.A life-size full-length portrait of the young Emperor in full
uniform ,resting his right hand upon a table, eclipsed all the other pictures in the stately room. dwarfed 使矮小 C
1.As television continued to command the family hours of the evening, radio found its own prime time hours in the morning with wake-up shows, bright with music and __, as well as time and weather announcements. A chitchat聊天 B hyperstimulation C collaboration D spur
2.At this conference Trudeau admonished the press as “a pretty lousy lot” for __ into his private life. A lapsing B snooping探听 C sneezing D yawning
3.The demoralizing effect on the enemy of such bombing and __ from planes completely hidden in a clouded sky was tremendous. A explosives B mines C barrels D barrages枪林弹雨
4.Three schools in Putney have __ their resources in order to buy an area of waste ground and turn it into a sports field. A pooled合并 B captured C sucked D transcended
5. The U.S. economy appeared to function on autopilot during much of 1995 with __ mergers that kept the stock market in a tizzy. A
appalling B anticipating C mind-boggling难以置信的 D brain-racking 6. After Steve entered the room he __ the satchel on the label and sat down on the sofa in front of the telly, A plunked down落下 B plucked out C ran amok D pecked out
7. The roads tied __ regions together, moving the goods and people required to build and maintain extensive public works. A full-blown B far-gone C far-flung漫长的 D far-fetched
8. Evidence from drawings of that time indicates that the Egyptians used a __, probably milk, to reduce the sliding friction and thus increase the efficiency of the inclined planes. A nutrition B junk C query D lubricant润滑剂
9. Since last Sunday, the volcano has __ a giant cloud of ash, dust and gases into the air. A mustered B demolished C forged D spewed喷出
10. He __ together a living from several part-time jobs by running sight-seeing charters, and collecting dry cleaning. A haunts B cobbles草率拼凑 C flattens D underscores Unit 5
1、 Aside from the Agnew and Watergate scandals, much of the uproar in this politically tumultuous year centered on aclash/confrontationbetween the president and Congress. 在这个政治动荡的年代，除了阿格纽和水门丑闻，
大部分的冲突都集中在总统和国会之间。——confrontation冲突，对质;比较；对抗。
2、 A “direct//frontal正面的attack”, which means trying to deal with the entire problem at the same time, is doomed to failure because of the complexity of critical phenomena.“正面攻击”意味着在同一时间试图处理全部问题，但是注定失败，因为关键现象复杂。——frontal正面的
3、 The man was given a final/an ultimatum最后通牒 warning that if he told his name, he would be set free; if not, he would be impaled through the heart. 这个人下了最后通牒：如果他告知姓名，将被释放；否则将被刺穿心脏。——an ultimatum最后通牒
4、 Total expenditures at all levels of government for highways, roads, and streets were almost 3.7 billion during 1949 and probably came close/approached接近 to the 4 billion level in the year to follow. 1949年政府投入高速公路，公路和街道建设近37亿元，在接下来的一年内花费近40亿元。——approached接近
5、 In 1992 a trial of white police officers charged with beating a black motorist that ended in verdicts of not guilty — despite videotaped evidence of the beating — triggered a violent /riot暴乱，disturbance in Los Angeles and other cities. 1992年白色警察官员审判：指控一名黑色车的驾驶员无罪---尽管有打架录像带证据--在洛杉矶和其它城市触发暴乱。——riot暴乱，骚乱
6、 I remained seated for a considerable time, at first only listening, then reflecting/pondering深思熟虑的 on the mystery of that sweet trill of laughter. 我留下了相当多的时间，起初只是听，然后思考女儿甜美声音的神秘。——pondering深思熟虑的
7、 Supported /Buttressed支撑，加固by the healthiest economy in an economically reeling Western world, in 1979 the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) moved away from its outcast status in the post-World War Ⅱ period toward a position of greater international leadership. 在摇晃的西方世界经济中，有最健康经济的支撑，1979年联邦德国从二战后被抛弃的低位转向更大的国际领导权。——Buttressed支撑，加固 8、 The estimated 2 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in 1992 was not enough /did not suffice不满足（做某事）to stop the rise in unemployment, which reached more than 310,000 (10.6 percent of the labor force) in the fall. 1992年国民生产总值估计达2%，这一情况不能阻止失业率的上升，在秋季失业率超过310000（是劳动力的10.6%）——did not suffice不满足（做某事）
9、 The peasants caught the influence/contagion感染，影响of his
enthusiasm and worked so hard and steadily that they were soon as well set up and provided for as if they had been old inhabitants.农民被他的热情所感染，努力工作，渐渐地也给他们建房，提供生活费，似乎他们已经是老居民了。——contagion感染，影响
10、 An especially impressive world mark was set by the U.S. men’s 4 × 400 meter relay team, which broke/shattered打破the
long-standing record in track and field by taking the gold in 2 minutes 55.74 seconds. 在4 × 400米接力赛中，尤其是美国人用时2分55.74秒，打破了现有记录，留下了深刻的印象。——shattered打破
11、 The new rule stipulated that a worker who was (tardy迟到的) three times in one month should be dismissed immediately.新规定：员工一个月迟到三次，立即被解雇。
12、 At the end of the President’s speech, leaders of both parties announced their full support of the doctrine he had (enunciated阐明，确切地说明) 在总统演讲末，两党领导宣布完全支持总统所阐述的教义。 13、 Because of its capacity to (dissolve（使）溶
解) numerous substances in large amounts, pure water rarely occurs in nature.由于溶解物质的最大容量，纯净水很少存在于自然中。
14、 In Austria he met with President Kurt Waldheim, who remained a figure of controversy 公开辩论because of his reported (complicity同谋，共犯 ) in Nazi crimes against Jews and others during World War Ⅱ.在澳大利亚，他遇到了Kurt Waldheim总统，二战期间，他公开辩论：由于他的纳粹同谋反对犹太人。
15、 When we arrived there we saw many
red-and-whitestreamers floating gently into the outfield grass,
fireworks (booming急速发展) overhead.当我们到达那里的时候，看到草场上方许多红白彩带飘飘，翠烟袅袅。
16、 The bird put his tiny head to one side and looked up at him with his soft bright eye. Then he hopped about and pecked the earth (briskly轻快地，伶俐地) , looking for seeds and insects.鸟把小头转向一边，用柔软明亮的眼睛打量着他。之后它单脚跳起，轻快地啄泥土，寻找种子和昆虫。
17、 John reached for a cigarette and (chuckled轻声地笑) a little. “We did not think anybody would be stubborn enough to come here
in spite of our discouragement.”约翰抽着香烟，轻声笑着说：“虽然我们有些气馁，但是无法阻止我们前进。”
18、 For a moment I thought he was being serious, but then he (winked使眼色) at me.
不一会，我想：他会很严重，但之后他向我使眼色。
19、 Many of the country’s prosecutors feared the proposal was ultimately aimed at curbing 限制their considerable powers and letting wrongdoers 违法犯罪人off the hook挂钩.
许多国家的检举人担心：最终通过的建议，限制很大的权力，使得违法犯罪人落网。
20、 About half of all children in South Asia and one-third of those in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from (malnutrition营养不良), which usually results from an inadequate intake of essential vitamins and minerals.南非一半的孩子和在撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲(大陆)的三分之一的孩子遭遇营养不良，通常是由于缺乏必需的维生素和矿物质所致。 Unit 6
1、 Schools and parents are warned today to take action to combat a health timebomb linked to childhood obesity. ——grapple with
2、 On his 100th birthday Mr. Bush was swamped with cards and messages of congratulations sent by his friends. ——inundated
3、 The boy sat mesmerized long after the fairground closed and the folk had all gone. ——transfixed
4、 At the press conference, the foreign minister said again and again that the government would refuse to compromise with terrorists.——reiterated
5、 Invasive species are a destructive force that seriously harms our environment and imposes a heavy, often hidden cost on the economy. ——juggernaut
6、 The need for clean water for hygiene is particularly urgent for women and children in poor communities. ——pressing
7、 Davis has earned a reputation as a forthright opponent of any kind of nuclear waste dumping at sea.——an outspoken
8、 He said people who want to ensure that global issues are dealt with should be voting for the Greens. ——addressed
9、 he development of a good notion is not always an easy task, but without it, you may collect aimless or useless data.——assumption
10、 He wanted to be an actor but gave in to parental pressure to be respectable and trained as a lawyer. ——succumb to
11、 Dissatisfaction with the Labour government now seems to have (permeated) every section of society.
12、 We know these chemicals are dangerous, but their benefits far (outweigh) any risk to the environment.
13、 All previous attempts to (halt) the fighting have failed so why should these proposals be any more successful?
14、 The president and his supporters are almost certain to read this vote as a (mandate) for continued economic reform.
15、 She is not satisfied with her job because it provides no (outlet) for her energies and talents.
16、 The audience are deeply impressed by the leading character of the feature film that looks (plying) at social problems.
17、 My second and more (compelling) reason for going to Dearborn was to see the Henry Ford Museum.
18、 Scotland’s (onslaught) on Wales in the second half of the match earned them a 4 - 1 victory.
19、 By the time I left his house he had become pretty hostile; I felt I (deserved) better than that.
20、 Today almost every household has radios, TVs and a whole (host) of gadgets by electricity.
2012-04-13 23:40
unit7-8
Unit 7 课后练习题：
1，The director said that what he was really dreaming of was a company of actors all filled with the same spirit. （brimming with / imbued with）
导演说,他十分渴望的是使一个公司的演员都洋溢着同一种精神（使充满，满溢的）
2，No doubt that there is always a certain amount of fear when a person starts any new job. （trepidation）
毫无疑问，当一个人开始任何新的工作时总会有一定的担心（担心，恐惧） 3, What we need for this project is someone with a lively and inquiring mind who will have lots o f new ideas. (vivacious)
对于这个项目，我们需要的是活波的，创新的，专注的人（活波的，充满活力的）
4, I think it would be unfair to Debby’s family to conjecture about the possible reasons for her suicide at the moment. (speculate on)
我认为它将对黛比的家庭不公平，推测这很可能她目前自杀的原因。（考虑，推测）
5, The Foreign Ministers have reached a provisional agreement to hold a preparatory conference before the next month’s Washington summit. (tentative)
外交部长们已经达成一个临时协定在下个月的华盛顿首脑会议前举行一个准备会议。（尝试性的，临时的）
6, The rare disease, which only affects young children of both sexes, has continued to perplex doctors and public health workers. (baffle)
这种罕见的病毒，只影响年幼的小孩，已经连续的使医生和公共卫生工作者困惑。（使困难，使困惑）
7, The political analyst has pointed out that the only way they can bring about political change is by putting pressure on the country. (make for)
这些政治分析家指出他们可以致使政治变革唯一的方法是对国家施压。（致使，造成）
8, Sue had never done any decorating before, but she’s made a first-class job of the living room. (crack)
Sue以前从来没有做过任何装饰美化，但是她装饰出了一个一流的起居室。（一流）
9, In his speech, Hugh described abortion as a terrible offence against God and humanity, which made the audience very angry. (raised audience’s hackles)
在他的演说中，Hugh描述人工流产为反对上帝和人类的可怕罪行，——使听众很愤怒。（引起听众触怒）
10, Harriet is thirty-two, he is gorgeous, he has got his own house and, what’s more, he is single. (unattached)
Harriet 32岁，他非常华丽帅气，已经拥有属于自己的住房，更重要的是，他还未婚。（未订婚的，未结婚的）
二，选择题：
1，We looked out across a river valley to the broad snow-white ridge of Mount Ararat, its peak against the blue sky. C. incandescent
我们向对面看，穿过一个河谷通往宽阔雪白的阿勒山脊，它的山峰在蓝天映射下格外明亮。（十分明亮的，耀眼的）
2，Would you care for some tea, or even a light meal, to yourself before setting off for a new adventure? D. fortify
您还需要来点茶吗，乃至便餐，在开始一个新冒险之前增强你自己？（增强）
3，The company she was working for was failing so she decided to and set up her own business with a friend. B. bail out
他曾经工作的这家公司工作失败，所以他决定离职并和朋友一起开始自己的事业。（罢休，保释）
4，Fisher was given a in the marketing section before a decision was made about his future. A. tryout
在关于他的前途的结果出来之前，Fisher在销售部试用。（试验，试用）
5，This is one of the few jobs you can do in this place and being completely drunk. B. get away with
这是在这个地方少数的工作中你可以做的，侥幸的逃脱好喝的处罚（侥幸成功，逃脱处罚）
6，The lieutenant general has got such an enormous — I’ve never known anyone so full of themselves! D. ego
中将拥有如此巨大的自尊——我从没见过任何人像他们那样自信。（自我，自尊，自负）
7，Before becoming a director, Jason had worked as a film critic for a magazine for a number of years. A,full blown
在完全成为一个导演之前，Jason曾经在一个杂志任职电影评论家很多年。（完全成为，形成）
8，According to a survey of 250 high schools, the rate among students is currently one in five. B. dropout
根据对250所高中的调查，目前辍学率1:5。（退学者，辍学者）
9，Please don’t be so depressed; I’m sure things will start to for the motor trade in the coming year. A. look up
请不要如此的精神不振，我确信在来年汽车业情况会开始好转。（改善，好转）
10，After a heated debate, the Parliament voted to impose a two-year on nuclear weapons testing. D. moratorium
在一场激烈的辩论之后，国会投票决定强迫暂停一个为期2年的核武器试验。（正式的延缓，暂停） Unit 8 A: come by zenith obliterate
in the nick of time falsifying
Slips of the tongue perseverence bracket on the watch marking time
1、 In my hometown, jobs were not so easy to obtain in the past as they are now.——come by
在我的家乡，实际上在过去工作并不是如此容易就获得的。（得到，获得） 2、 Once considered the peak of human achievement, climbing Mount Everest now is almost commonplace.——zenith
一考虑人类成就的高峰，攀登珠穆朗玛峰现在几乎是平凡的。（顶点，极点，最高点）
3、 I think there is time enough to erase the poignant memories of how things once went for him in Paris. ——obliterate
我认为这还有充分的时间来抹擦这令人心碎的记忆，事情曾经怎样尽力想求得他在巴黎。（除去，涂去，擦掉）？？
4、 I nearly cooked a chicken for dinner last night but I remembered just in time that Jack's a vegetarian, so we had a cheese soufflé instead. ——in the nick of time
昨晚我几乎煮熟了一只鸡作为晚餐，但是我恰好及时想起jack是一个素食者，所以我们用了奶酪替代。（恰好）
5、 The charges against the senior executive include abuse of power, bribery and altering fraudulently business records. ——falsifying 这归咎于高级行政官滥用职权，行贿受贿，篡改伪造事情记录。（篡改，伪造） 6、 The nervous strain of addressing a large conference can sometimes cause speakers to make silly minor errors: like Harold Wilson calling Harold Macmillan “Harold Wilson” for example.——Slips of the tongue 大规模的会议中神经紧张的说话方式有时会引起喇叭发生可笑的小错误：以Harold Wilson把Harold Macmillan 叫成“Harold Wilson”为例？？ 7、 Through hard work and persistence, he worked his way up from being a teacher in a village school to the headmaster of a large comprehensive.——perseverance
通过努力的工作和坚持不懈，他从一个乡村教师晋升为一个大规模学校的校长。（坚持不懈，不屈不饶）
8、 In his country, a 33% top tax rate has been fixed on everyone in the higher income group.——bracket
在他的国家，一个33%的最高税率已经被固定在每一个高收入人群上。（把??归为一类）
9、 Teachers are now more aware of the implication of the computer “hacker” phenomenon and are on the alert for potential hackers and cases of computer addiction that are already severe.——on the watch 教师们现在更加意识到电脑黑客现象的含义，密切注意着潜在的电脑黑客和早已造成计算机严重中毒的案例。（留心，注意）
10、 After working as a clerk for 5 years, he is bored with the job, and merely doing the routine without accomplishing anything at it. ——marking time
在从事5年办事员后，他被这份工作烦扰，仅仅例行公事花时间却得不到进步。（花时间而未获进步） C:
played around with enslaved well off cog spelt bait hearty bluff
beside herself oversight
1、 Chris decided to divorce Pat because he often （played around with） a girl young enough to be his daughter.
2、 Generations of women in this part of the world were （enslaved） by poverty, by religion an by tradition.
3、 My neighbor is always complaining about his secondhand car — he doesn’t know when she’s （well off）
4、 It is becoming abundantly clear that, unless r make some determined move, I will become a permanent （cog） in the machine.
5、 The recent fall in house prices has（spelt） disaster for many people who want to sell their houses.
6、 I told my sister I’d lend her my new shirt if she let me borrow her jacket, but she didn’t rise to the （bait）
7、 My husband ate a （hearty） breakfast before he set off for his remote farmhouse.
8、 Yesterday morning when she said she was going to leave him for good, he thought it was only a （bluff） .
9、 Alice was （beside herself） with grief when she heard her husband died in a plane crash.
10、 Due to an （oversight） by my bank, there was less money in my account than there should have been.
2012-04-13 23:42
unit2
Is Love an Art?爱是一门艺术吗？ Erich Fromm 埃里克·弗罗姆
Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Or is love a pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one “falls into” if one is lucky? This little book is based on the former premise, while undoubtedly the majority of people today believe in the latter.
爱一门艺术呢，还是一种快感呢？如果是一门艺术，它就需要知识和努力；而要体验快感则全凭造化，唯幸运儿才能“坠入爱河”。如今多数人无疑相信后一种观点，但这本小书却是基于前一种假定的。
Not that people think that love is not important. They are starved for it; they watch endless numbers of films about happy and unhappy love stories, they listen to hundreds of trashy songs about love — yet hardly anyone thinks that there is anything that needs to be learned about love. 这并不是说人们认为爱不重要。人们渴望着爱，他们看不计其数的描写幸福和不幸爱情故事的电影，他们听数以百计的毫无价值的爱情歌曲——然而几乎没有人认为关于爱还有什么需要学习的东西。
This peculiar attitude is based on several premises which either singly or combined tend to uphold it. Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love. Hence the problem to them is how to be loved, how to be lovable. In pursuit of this aim theyfollow several paths. One, which is especially used by men, is to be successful, to be as powerful and rich as the social margin of one’s position permits. Another, used especially by women, is to make oneself attractive, by cultivating one’s body, dress, etc. Other ways of making oneself attractive, used both by men and women, are to develop pleasant manners, interesting conversation, to be helpful, modest, inoffensive. Many of the ways to make oneself lovable are the same as those used to make oneself successful, “to win friends and influence people.” As a ED matter of fact, what most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.
这种奇特的态度基于几个前提，这些前提往往单独地或相互结合地支持着这种态度。多数人认为所谓爱主要是“被爱”的问题，而不是“爱人”的问题，不是自己有没有爱的能力的问题。所以，他们认为问题在于如何被爱，如何变得可爱。他们通过几种途径来达到这一目的。其中尤为男士们所喜用的是取得成功，在自己的社会地位允许的范围内获得最大的权力和财富。而尤为女士们所喜用的是尽力塑造体形，注重衣着等，从而使自己更有吸引力。另外一些使自己更有吸引力的方式，则为男女所共同采用，如使自己举止得体，谈吐幽默，以及乐于助人、谦虚随和等。很多让自己变得可爱的方式和使自己事业有成的途径相同，如“赢得朋友，影响他人”等。其实，在我们的文化中，大多数所谓的可爱，实质上是既要讨人喜欢，又要具有性的魅力。
A second premise behind the attitude that there is nothing to be learned about love is the assumption that the problem of love is the problem of an object, not the problem of a faculty. People think that to love is simple, but that to find the right object to love — or to be loved — is difficult. This attitude has several reasons rooted in the development of modern society. One reason is the great change which occurred in the twentieth century with respect to the choice of a “love object.” In the Victorian age, as in many traditional cultures, love was mostly not a spontaneous personal experience which then might lead to marriage. On the contrary,
marriage was contracted by convention either by the respective families, or by a marriage broker, or without the help of such intermediaries; it was concluded on the basis of social considerations, and love was supposed to develop once the marriage had been concluded. In the last few generations the concept of romantic love has become almost universal in the Western world. In the United States, while considerations of a conventional nature are not entirely absent, to a vast extent people are in search of “romantic love,” of the personal experience of love which then should lead to marriage. This new concept of freedom in love must have greatly enhanced the importance of the object as against the importance of the function.
导致“爱不需要学习”这种看法的第二个前提是：人们想当然地认为，爱的问题在于“对象”，而不在于“能力”。他们认为“爱”是简单的，而找到爱或被爱的合适对象却很困难。造成这种态度有几个原因，它们的根源在于现代社会的发展。其中一个原因是：在20世纪，对“爱的对象”的选择发生了重大变化。在维多利亚时代，如同在很多传统文化中一样，一般说来，爱情并不是一种最终可能会导致婚姻的自然产生的个人体验。恰恰相反，婚姻是按传统习俗订好的，或通过双方家庭或通过一个媒人，也可能不需要这类中间人的帮助；婚姻是在考虑社会需要的基础上决定的，一旦结了婚，爱情就自然发展起来。在过去几代人中，浪漫爱情的观念已在西方世界变得极为普遍。在美国，虽然传统性质的考虑并未完全消除，但很大程度上人们却在寻求“浪漫爱情”，寻求导致婚姻的那种个人的爱情体验。这种自由恋爱的新概念一定大大增加了“对象”相对于“功能”的重要性。
Closely related to this factor is another feature characteristic of contemporary culture. Our whole culture is based on the appetite for buying, on the idea of a mutually favorable exchange. Modern man’s happiness consists in the thrill of looking at the shop windows, and in buying all that he can afford to buy, either for cash or on installments. He (or she) looks at people in a similar way. For the man an attractive girl — and for the woman an attractive man — are the prizes they are after. “Attractive” usually means a nice package of qualities which are popular and sought after on the personality market. What specifically makes a person attractive depends on the fashion of the time, physically as well as mentally. During the twenties, a drinking and smoking girl, tough and sexy, was attractive; oday the fashion demands more domesticity and coyness. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of this century, a man had to be aggressive and ambitious — today he has to be social and tolerant — in order to be an attractive “package.”At any rate, the sense of falling in love develops usually only with regard to such human commodities as are within reach of one’s own possibilities for exchange. I am out for a bargain; the object should be desirable from the standpoint of its social value, and at the same timeshould want me, considering my
overt and hidden assets and potentialities. Two persons thus fall in love when they feel they have found the best object available on the market, considering the limitations of their own exchange values. Often, as in buying real estate, the hidden potentialities which can be developed play a considerable role in this bargain. In a culture in which the marketing orientation prevails, and in which material success is the outstanding value, there is little reason to be surprised that human love relations follow the same pattern of exchange which governs the commodity and the labor market.
同这一因素密切相关的是当代文化特有的另一个特点。我们的整个文化是以购买欲和互惠交换的理念为基础的。现代人的幸福在于看着商店橱窗时的兴奋，在于用现金或分期付款购的方式购买所有他们买得起的东西。于是，他（或她）也以同样的方式去看人。对男人来说，有魅力的女孩子是他要追求的对象，而有魅力的男人对于女人也同样如此。“有魅力”通常意味着在个性市场上那些人们喜欢并追求的一组优秀的品质。特别使人有魅力的东西，无论是精神上还是物质上，都是由时代的风尚所决定的。在20年代，一个抽烟、喝酒、泼辣、性感的女孩是有魅力的；今天的风尚更多地要求贤惠和娇羞。19世纪末和本世纪初，男人必须雄心勃勃、敢作敢为才能称得上有魅力，而如今男人则必须善于交际、宽容大度。无论如何，通常只有在这些人性化的商品在自身有可能进行交换的情况下，才会培养起爱上某人的感觉。我一心要做一笔交易；对象不但应有合意的社会价值，同时考虑到我本人公开和隐蔽的资产和潜在能力，对象也应该需要我。这样，当两个人考虑到自身交换价值的局限，认为自己已经在市场上找到了最好的对象时，他们就开始恋爱了。像购买不动产一样，能发展的潜力在这种交易中常常起着相当大的作用。在一个市场导向占主导地位，物质上的成功具有突出价值的文化中，人的爱情关系遵循商品和劳动力市场支配交换的同一模式，也就不足为奇了。
The third error leading to the assumption that there is nothing to be learned about love lies in the confusion between the initial experience of “falling” in love, and the permanent state of being in love, or as we might better say, of “standing” in love. If two people who have been strangers, as all of us are, suddenly let the wall between them break down, and feel close, feel one, this moment of oneness is one of the most exhilarating, most exciting experiences in life. It is all the more wonderful and miraculous for persons who have been shut off, isolated, without love. This miracle of sudden intimacy is often facilitated if it is combined with, or initiated by, sexual attraction and consummation. However, this type of love is by its very nature not lasting. The two persons become well acquainted, their intimacy loses more and more its miraculous character, until their antagonism, their disappointments, their mutual boredom kill whatever is left of the initial excitement. Yet, in the beginning they do not know all of this, in fact, they take the intensity of the infatuation, this being “crazy” about each other, for
proof of the intensity of their love, while it may only prove the degree of their preceding loneliness.
导致爱无需学习这一看法的第三个错误，在于将“爱上”一个人的初始体验和“爱”一个人（或不妨说是“处于”爱一个人）的永久性状态混为一谈。如果两个素昧平生的人（我们都是素昧平生的）突然让他们之间的那堵墙倒塌，感觉越来越亲密，最后感觉像一个人一样，这种像一个人一样的时刻是一生中最令人愉快、最令人激动的经历之一。对于那些与世隔绝、孤独而没有爱的人来说，它更是美妙和神奇的。这种突然亲近的奇迹，如果与性的吸引和性的完美结合起来，或者为性的吸引和性的完美所引发，常常会变得很容易。但这种爱情自身的性质决定了它是不会长久的。两个人相互熟识了，他们的亲近关系也就越来越失去了其神奇性，直到最后他们的敌对、他们的失望，他们的相互厌烦把所剩不多的最初的激情也扼杀掉了。然而，开始时他们对此却一无所知：事实上，他们把彼此间的极度迷恋，相互为对方“疯狂”的状态当成了强烈爱情的明证，而实际上这也许只是证明了他们以前是多么的孤独。
This attitude — that nothing is easier than to love — has continued to be the prevalent idea about love in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love. If this were the case with any other activity, people would be eager to know the reasons for the failure, and to learn how one could do better — or they would give up the activity. Since the latter is impossible in the case of love, there seems to be only one adequate way to overcome the failure of love — to examine the reasons for this failure, and to proceed to study the meaning of love. 没有比爱更容易的事了——这种态度一直是有关爱的流行看法，尽管大量的证据说明事实恰恰相反。几乎没有什么活动、什么事业像爱情那样带着如此巨大的希望与期待开始，而又如此经常以失败告终。如果从事任何一件其他的活动出现这种情况，人们会渴望知道失败的原因，渴望学会怎样才能做得更好——或者他们会放弃这种活动。既然在爱的问题上不可能选择放弃，看来只有一种合适的方式来克服爱的失败了——这就是研究失败的原因，并进而探讨爱的意义。 The first step to take is to become aware that love is an art just as living is an art; if we want to learn how to love we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn any other art, say music, painting, carpentry, or the art of medicine or engineering.
第一步要做的是要意识到，正如生活是一门艺术一样，“爱”也是一门艺术；如果我们想要学会如何去爱，我们就必须像学习其他任何一门艺术，如音乐、绘画、木工或者药学、工程那样，采取同样的方式。
What are the necessary steps in learning any art?
学习任何一门艺术的必要步骤是什么呢？
The process of learning an art can be divided conveniently into two parts; one, the mastery of the theory; the other, the mastery of the practice. If I want to learn the art of medicine, I must first know the facts about the human body, and about various diseases. When I have all this theoretical knowledge, I am by no means competent in the art of medicine. I shall become a master in this art only after a great deal of practice, until eventually the results of my theoretical knowledge and the results of my practice are blended into one — my intuition, the essence of the mastery of any art. But, aside from learning the theory and practice, there is a third factor necessary to becoming a master in any art — the mastery of the art must be a matter of ultimate concern; there must be nothing else in the world more important than the art. This holds true for music, for medicine, for carpentry — and for love. And, maybe, here lies the answer to the question of why people in our culture try so rarely to learn this art, in spite of their obviousfailures, in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love, success, prestige, money, power — almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving.
学习一门艺术的过程可以很方便地分为两个部分：一是掌握理论；二是精于实践。如果我想学医，就必须首先了解有关人体和各种疾病的事实。但即使我掌握了所有这些理论知识，我在医术上仍然是无法胜任的。只有经过大量的实践，直到最后我的理论知识的成果和实践的成果融为一体，形成了直觉（这是掌握任何一门技艺的本质），我才能成为这门技艺的一位大师。但是除了学习理论和进行实践外，精通任何技艺还必须有第三种因素，即对这门技艺的掌握必须是头等大事；世上再没有比这门技艺更重要的事了。这一点适用于音乐、药学、木工，也同样适用于爱。在我们的文化中，人们尽管在爱的方面明显地屡遭失败，却仍很少去学习这门技艺，其原因也许就在这里：虽然内心深处都渴望爱，却认为其他任何事情都比爱更重要，如成功、声望、金钱、权力；我们几乎把所有的精力都用来学习怎样去实现这些目标，而几乎不花费任何精力来学习爱的艺术。 Could it be that only those things are considered worthy of being learned with which one can earn money or prestige,and that love,
which“only”profits the soul, but is profitless in the modern sense, is a luxury we have no right to spend much energy on?
这会不会是因为人们认为只有那些能用来赢得金钱和声望的东西才值得学习，而爱“仅仅”有益于心灵，却不能带来现代意义上的收益，所以就成了我们没有权利为之耗费过多精力的一种奢侈品呢？
unit4
课文部分：
Is e-mail a blessing or a curse? Last month, after a week’s vacation, I discovered 1, 218 unread e-mail messages waiting in my in box. I pretended to be dismayed, but secretly I was pleased. This is how we measure our wired worth in the late 1990s — if you aren’t overwhelmed by e-mail, you must be doing something wrong.
电子邮件究竟是福是祸？上个月在度假一周之后，我发现我的收件箱里有1218封未读邮件。我假装很沮丧，但是私底下却很愉快。这就是我们在90年代末期衡量自己的联系价值的方式——如果你不能被电子邮件吞噬，那么你肯定出了什么问题。
Never mind that after subtracting the stale office chitchat, spam, flame wars, dumb jokes forwarded by friends who should have known better and other e-mail detritus, there were perhaps seven messages actually worth reading. I was doomed to spend half my workday just deleting junk. E-mail sucks.
如果除去那些无聊的办公室邮件、垃圾邮件、网络口水大战邮件，那些应该更进一步了解我的朋友抄送的沉闷的笑话，以及别的零星电子邮件，其实大概只剩下7封邮件值得一读。但我却注定要花半天的工作时间删除这些垃圾邮件。电子邮件太糟糕了。
But wait — what about those seven? A close friend in Taipei I haven’t seen in five years tells me he’s planning to start a family. A complete stranger in Belgium sends me a hot story tip. Another stranger offers me a job. I’d rather lose an eye than lose my e-mail account. E-mail rocks!
但是等一下，这7封邮件又怎么样呢？一位5年未见的在台北的好朋友告诉我他正准备组建家庭。比利时的一个陌生人发给我一个火爆故事的提示。另一个陌生人要给我一份工作。与失去我的电子邮件信箱相比，我宁可失去我的一只眼睛。电子邮件太棒了！
E-mail. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Con artists and real artists, advertisers and freedom fighters, lovers and sworn
enemies-they’ve all flocked to e-mail as they would to any new medium of expression. E-mail is convenient, saves time, brings us closer to one
another, helps us manage our ever-more-complex lives. Books are written, campaigns conducted, crimes committed — all via e-mail. But it is also inconvenient, wastes our time, isolates us in front of our computers and introduces more complexity into our already too-harried lives. To skeptics, e-mail
is just the latest chapter in the evolving history of human communication. A snooping husband now discovers his wife’s affair by reading her private e-mail — but he could have uncovered the same sin by finding letters a generation ago.
电子邮件让人难以忍受，却又无法离开。欺骗大师和艺术大师，广告商和自由斗士，爱人和宿敌都纷纷使用电子邮件作为新的表达工具。电子邮件方便、省时、拉近彼此距离，帮助我们经营我们日益复杂的生活。写书、运动、犯罪都可以通过电子邮件进行。但是电子邮件也很麻烦，浪费时间，让我们只面对电脑，彼此隔膜，让我们本已备受折磨的生活愈发复杂。对于怀疑论者，电子邮件只是人类交流演化史中的最近的篇章。一位爱管闲事的丈夫在阅读了他妻子私人电子邮件后发现了她的背叛，但是在上个年代，他也可以通过阅读书信发现这样的丑事。 Yet e-mail — and all online communication — is in fact something truly different; it captures the essence of life at the close of the 20th century with an authority that few other products of digital technology can claim. Does the pace of life seem ever faster? E-mail simultaneously allows us to cope with that acceleration and contributes to it. Are our attention spans shriveling under barrages of new, improved forms of stimulation? The quick and dirty e-mail is made to order for those whose ability to concentrate is measured in nanoseconds. If we accept that the creation of the globes-spanning Internet is one of the most important technological innovations of the last half of this century, then we must give e-mail — the living embodiment of human connection across the Net — pride of place. The way we interact with each other is
changing; e-mail is both the catalyst and the instrument of that change.
然而电子邮件——所有的网络通讯事实上是完全与众不同的；在20世纪末它抓住了生活的实质，有别的数码产品无法比拟的权威。我们的生活节奏是否在加快？电子邮件一方面让我们应对节奏的加速，另一方面又一手造成了这种加速。我们的注意力是否在众多新颖、改善的刺激之下难以为继？迅速涌现的垃圾邮件是给那些注意力可以用纳米秒来测量的人的。如果我们接受在全球扩张的因特网是最近半个世纪最重要的技术革新，那么我们必须要给电子邮件——网络上人类联系的活生生的证明——一个首要位置。我们彼此的互动方式正在发生变化，电子邮件是那种变化的催化剂和媒介。
The scope of the phenomenon is mind-boggling. Worldwide, 225 million people can send and receive e-mail. Forget about the Web or e-commerce
or even online pornography; e-mail is the Internet’s true killer app the software application that we simply must have, even if it means buying a $ 2,000 computer and plunking down $ 20 a month to America Online. According to Donna Hoffman, a professor of marketing at Vanderbilt University, one survey after another finds that when online users are asked what they do on the Net, “e-mail is always No. 1.”
这种现象的范围是令人难以想象的。全球有2亿2千5百万人可以收发电子邮件。忘记网络，或是电子商务，或是在线色情网站吧，电子邮件才是因特网真正的最佳应用程序——我们必须拥有的程序，即使这意味着要买2000美元一台的电脑，每月要付给美国在线20美元。根据多纳·霍夫曼，一位在范德比特大学的市场营销教授在一次又一次的调查之后发现，当受访者被问到他们上网是在做什么时，他们总是回答：“电子邮件总是排在第一。”
Oddly enough, no one planned it, and no one predicted it. When research scientists first began cooking up the Internet’s predecessor, the Arpanet, in 1968, their primary goal was to enable disparate computing centers to share resources. “But it didn’t take very long before they discovered that the most important thing was the ability to send mail around, which they had not anticipated at all,” says Eric Allman, chief technical officer of Sendmail, Inc., and the primary author of a
20-year-old program — Sendmail that still transports the vast majority of the world’s e-mail across the Internet. It seems that what all those top computer scientists really wanted to use the Internet for was as a place to debate, via e-mail, such crucially important topics as the best science-fiction novel of all time. Even though Allman is now quite proud that his software helps hundreds of millions of people communicate, he says he didn’t set out originally to change the world. As a systems administrator at DC Berkeley in the late ’70s, he was constantly hassled by computer science researchers in one building who wanted to get their email from machines in another location. “I just wanted to make my life easier,” says Allman.
令人费解的是，没有人计划过，也没有人预测过。当作研究的科学家在1968年一开始设计因特网的雏形ARPA 计算机网的时候，他们的主要目的是让互不联系的运算中心能够共享资源。“但是不久以后他们发现最重要的其实是能够到处发信的能力，他们其实事先根本没有预见到”，Sendmail公司的首席技术官恩里克·奥曼说道，他本人也有20年是Sendmail这个程序的主要编写人员，这个软件今天仍然在因特网上传输大量的邮件。似乎那些顶尖的计算机科学家真正希望使因特网成为一个通过电子邮件，供大家争论一些重要话题的地方，如同一直以来的一个科幻小说温床一样。虽然奥曼现在很自豪，他的软件帮助数亿人沟通，他说他一开始并没有打算改变世界。在70年代他是加州大学伯克利分校的系统管理员，那里的计算机科学研究员时常要麻烦他，要让他帮忙从另一个地点的机器里收取他们的电子邮件。“我只是想让我的生活轻松点。”奥曼说道。
Don’t we all? When my first child was born in 1994, email seemed to me some kind of Promethean gift perfectly designed
to help me cope with the irreconcilable pressures of new fatherhood and full-time freelance writing. It saved me time and money without ever requiring me to leave the house; it salvaged my social life, allowed me to conduct interviews as a reporter and kept a lifeline open to my far-flung extended family. Indeed, I finally knew for sure that the digital world was viscerally potent when I found myself in the middle of a bitter fight with my mother — on e-mail. Again, new medium, old story. 我们又何尝不想呢？当我的第一个孩子在1994年出生的时候，电子邮件对我来说似乎就像普罗米修斯的礼物，刚好帮我应对了初为人父和全职自由撰稿人之间不可调和的压力。它帮我省下了时间和金钱，我都不用走出家门；它拯救了我的社交生活，允许我作为一名记者进行采访，又能够让我同远隔千山万水的大家庭联系。的确，我终于确信当我在同我母亲进行一场电子邮件苦战的时候，数字世界是强有力的。同样，新的媒体，老的故事。
My mother had given me an e-mail head start. In 1988, she bought me a modem so I could create a CompuServe account. The reason? Her younger brother had contracted a
rapidly worsening case of Parkinson’s disease. He wasn’t able to talk clearly, and could hardly scrawl his name with a pen or pencil. But he had a computer, and could peck out words on a keyboard. My mom figured that if the family all had CompuServe accounts, we could send him e-mail. She grasped, long before the Internet became a household word, how online communication offered new possibilities for transcending physical
limitations, how as simple a thing as email could bring us closer to those whom we love.
我的母亲是我使用电子邮件的启蒙者。1988年，她给我买了一个调制解调器，我创建了Compuserve 账户，为什么呢？她的弟弟帕金森症恶化了。他不能清楚地说话，几乎连名字都不能写了。但是他有一台电脑，能够在键盘上打字。我母亲认为，如果所有的家庭成员都有Compuserve 的账户，我们就可以给他写电子邮件。她可谓是很久之前就了解因特网会成为家庭常用词，了解在线联络可以如何穿越生理限制，简单的电子邮件可以如何拉近我们与我们所爱的人之间的距离。
It may even help us find those whom we want to love in the first place. Jenn Shreve is a freelance writer in the San Francisco Bay Area who keeps a close eye on the emerging culture of the new online generation. For the last couple of years, she’s seen what she considers to be a
positive change in online dating habits. E-mail, she argues, encourages the shy. “It offers a semi-risk-free environment to initiate romance,” says Shreve. “Because it lacks the immediate threat of physical rejection, people who are perhaps shy or had painful romantic failures in the past can use the Internet as a way to build a relationship in the early romantic stages.”
它甚至可以一下子帮我们找到我们想爱的人。简恩·希瑞夫是旧金山海湾地区的自由作家，她一直关注新的网络一代的新兴文化。最近几年，她看到了网络约会习惯发生了积极的变化。她认为，电子邮件鼓励那些害羞的人。“它创造了一种半无风险的环境，方便制造浪漫，”希瑞夫说道，“因为它没有直接的生理拒绝的威胁，害羞的人们或者过去曾有过惨痛经历的人可以使用因特网建立早期的浪漫关系。”
But it’s not just about lust. E-mail also flattens hierarchies within the bounds of an office. It is far easier, Shreve notes, to make a suggestion to your superiors and colleagues via e-mail than it is to do so in a pressure-filled meeting room. “Any time when you have something that is difficult to say, e-mail can make it easier,” she says. “It serves as a buffer zone. ”
但这并不只是欲望而已。电子邮件也使得办公室里的等级观念变淡。希瑞夫注意到，通过电子邮件向你的上级和同事提意见要比在压力重重的会议室里简单得多。“任何时候，当你觉得有什么事情难以开口，电子邮件总能化繁为简。”她说，“它就像一个缓冲带。”
Of course, e-mail’s uses as a social lubricant can be taken to extremes. There is little point in denying the obvious dark side to the lack of self-constraint encouraged by e-mail. Purveyors of
pornography rarely call us on the phone and suggest out loud that we check out some “hot teen action.” But they don’t think twice about jamming our e-mail boxes full of outrageously prurient advertisements. People who would never insult us face to face will spew the vilest, most objectionable, most appalling rhetoric imaginable via e-mail or an instant message, or in the no-holds-barred confines of a chat room.
当然，把电子邮件作为一种社会润滑剂也有极端的一面。不容否认电邮由于缺乏自我控制而带来明显的负面影响。色情传播者几乎从来不打电话大声宣传说我们去访问一些“少年色情行为”。但是他们会不假思索地用大量赤裸裸的淫秽广告塞满我们的电子邮箱。从来不当面攻击我们的人会通过电子邮件或是即时消息，或是在毫无限制的聊天室内宣泄最卑鄙，最令人反感，最令人惊骇的言辞。
Cyberspace’s lapses in gentility underscores a central
contradiction inherent in online communication. If it is true that hours spent on the Net are often hours subtracted from watching television, one could argue that the digital era has raised the curtains on a new age of literacy — more people are writing more words than ever before! But what kind of words are we writing? Are we really more literate, or are we sliding ever faster into a quicksand of meaningless irrelevance, of pop-cultural triviality — expressed, usually, in lowercase letters — run amok? E-mail is actually too easy, too casual. Gone are the days when one would worry over a letter to a lover or a relative or a colleague. Now there’s just time for that quick e-mail, a few hastily cobbled together thoughts written in a colloquial style that usually borders on unedited stream of consciousness. The danger is obvious, snippy comments to a friend, overly sharp retorts to One’s boss, insults mistakenly sent to the target, not the intended audience. E-mail allows us to act before we can think — the perfect tool for a culture of hyperstimulation.
电脑空间的文明丧失折射出网络通讯的内在矛盾。如果说花在网络上的时间是从看电视这里分出来的，那么可以认为数字时代揭开了文化教育的新时代——更多的人要比以往写更多的字！但是我们在写怎样的文字啊？我们是不是变得更加有文化，还是我们只是更快地陷入了毫无意义的文字，以及流行文化的琐碎的陷阱——往往是用小写字母书写，四处横行的电子邮件往往太过于简单、随意。人们会担心情书、家书，或者给同事的书信中的一个字母的时代已经一去不复返。现在的时代，电子邮件往往是草草书写，用口语的方式表达思想，可以说简直就是未加编辑的意识流文字。危险是显而易见的：对朋友无礼的评论，对老板过于尖锐的反驳，对错误的目标发起攻击。电子邮件使得我们会不假思索采取行动——正是超级刺激时代的完美工具。
So instead of creating something new, we forward something old. Instead of crafting the perfect phrase, we use a brain-dead abbreviation, IMHO for In My Humble Opinion, or ROTFLMAO, for Rolling On The Floor Laughing My A-Off. Got a rumor? E-mail it to 50 people! Instant messaging and chat rooms just accentuate the casual negative. If e-mail requires little thought, then instant messaging — flashing a message directly onto a recipient’s computer monitor — is so insubstantial as to be practically nonexistent.
因此，我们其实抄送了一些陈旧的事物而不是创造了新兴的事物。我们没有创造出完美的词藻，相反，我们使用不经过大脑思考的缩写：用IMHO 指代 In my humble opinion （依我拙见），或者 ROTFLMAO 代表rolling on the floor laughing my A-off （在地上笑得打滚）。听到什么谣言？发给50个人！即时信息和聊天室只是加重了这种负面影响。如果电子邮件让人们不假思索，那么即
时信息——直接出现在接收者电脑屏幕上的信息——是如此的无实质性，简直可以被视作不存在。
E-mail, ultimately, is a fragile thing, easy to forge, easy to corrupt, easy to destroy. A few weeks ago a coworker of mine accidentally and irretrievably wiped out 1, 500 of his own saved messages. For a person who conducts the bulk of his life online, such a digital tragedy is akin to erasing part of your own memory. Suddenly, nothing’s left. It is comforting to think that, if preserved in a retrievable way, all the notes the world is passing back and forth today constitute a vast historical archive, but the opposite may also be true. Earlier this summer, I visited some curators at the Stanford University Library who are hard at work compiling a digital archive of Silicon Valley history. They bemoaned a new, fast-spreading corporate policy that requires the deletion of all corporate e-mails after every 60 or 90 days. As Microsoft and Netscape have learned to their dismay, old e-mails,however trivial they seem when they are written, can and will come back to haunt you. It is best, say the lawyers, to just wipe them all out.
电子邮件归根结底是脆弱的，很容易作假，容易篡改，容易破坏。几周之前我的同事不小心也不可逆转地删除了他保存的1500条信息。对于一个将大部分时间用作上网的人来说，这不啻于抹去了你部分的记忆。突然之间，一无所有。这样想可能会有所安慰，如果都用可以逆转的方式保存，那么所有的今天在世上传递的信息构成了巨大的历史档案，但是反过来可能也是正确的。近年夏天早些时候，我拜访了斯坦福大学图书馆的一些馆长，他们正努力编撰一部硅谷历史的电子档案。他们哀叹一条新的迅速推广的公司政策，即要求每过60天或90天必须删除所有的公司电子邮件。微软和网景之后沮丧地发现，旧的电子邮件无论当时多么不起眼，都能够也将会来骚扰你。律师说，最好还是把它们都删掉。
Still, e-mail is enabling radically new forms of worldwide human collaboration. Those 225 million people who can send and receive it represent a network of potentially cooperating individuals dwarfing anything that even the mightiest corporation or government can muster. Mailing-list discussion groups and online conferencing allow us to gather together to work on a multitude of projects that are interesting or helpful to us — to pool our collective efforts in a fashion never before possible. The most obvious place to see this collaboration right now is in the world of software. For decades, programmers have used e-mail to collaborate on projects. With increasing frequency, this collaboration is occurring across company lines, and often without even the spur of commercial incentives. It’s happening largely because it can — it’s relatively easy for a thousand programmers to collectively contribute to a project using e-mail and the Internet. Perhaps each individual contribution is small, but the scale of the Internet multiplies all efforts dramatically.
然而，电子邮件很大地促成了全球人类的合作。那些可以收发电子邮件的2亿2千5百万人代表了一个相互合作的网络，任何最强大的公司或者政府可以召集的力量都难以与其相比。邮件发送清单讨论小组和在线会议使我们可以一起合作，完成许多有意思或是对我们有帮助的项目——以前所未有的方式将我们集体的努力凝聚在一起。现在最明显可以看到这种合作的地方就是软件业。几十年来，程序员已经使用电子邮件在项目上进行合作。随着使用频率越来越高，这种合作正跨越公司的界限，往往没有商业的动机。之所以会这样，主要是因为它可以——1000名程序员一起使用电子邮件和因特网合作一个项目往往相对容易。也许每一个个体的贡献是微不足道的，但是因特网的规模让个体的贡献可以几何级的放大。
Meanwhile, now that we are all connected, day and night, across time zones and oceans and corporate firewalls, we are beginning to lose sight of the distinction between what is work and what is play.
与此同时，我们现在都联系在了一起，日日夜夜，跨越时区、大洋、公司的防火墙，我们开始看不清工作和娱乐之间的界限。
Six years after I logged onto CompuServe for the first time, I went to Australia for three weeks. Midway through my visit, I ended up in Alice Springs, a fraying-at-the-edges frontier town about a thousand miles away from anywhere in the middle of the great Australian outback. An exotic place, nestled among the oldest mountain remnants of the world, where flocks of parrots swoop and flutter through the downtown shopping district. But instead of wandering through the desert seeking out wallabies and feral camels, I found myself dialing long distance to a friend’s University of Melbourne Internet account, and transferring from there via a telnet program to my own account at the Well in San Francisco. Once on the Well, I checked my mail to see if a fact checker for Wired magazine had any fresh queries for me concerning a story I had recently submitted. 我首次登录 Compuserve 6年之后，我去澳大利亚待了三周。时间过半的时候，我在爱丽丝泉，一座位于澳洲内地的前沿小镇，离任何地方都有千里之遥。这是一个很独特的地方，在世界上最老的山脉中，当地成群的鹦鹉在镇中心购物区扑腾。我没有徜徉在沙漠中寻找小袋鼠和野生骆驼，恰恰相反，我发现我在拨长途试图登录我朋友的墨尔本大学的因特网账户，通过一个远程登录程序转到我在旧金山的威尔士自己的账户。当我登录之后，我查了邮件，看看Wired杂志的事实核查员是否对我最近投的一则故事有什么新的问题。
I was on the job — in large part because I had an e-mail address and had made the Devil’s bargain with the wired world. As I listened for the sound of the modem connecting in Alice
Springs, I felt in the pit of my stomach that I had lost control over some valuable part of my life. Your employer will refrain from calling you at 11:30 at night, but not from sending an inquiring, hectoring, must-be-promptly-answered-as-soon-as-you-log-on e-mail. E-mail
doesn’t just collapse distance, it demolishes all boundaries. And that can be, depending on the moment, either a blessing or a curse. 我能够在工作，很大程度上是因为我有电子邮件地址，而且同这个紧密联系的世界进行了魔鬼式的交换。当我听到与爱丽丝泉紧密相连的调制解调器的声音时，我内心知道我失去了我生活中一些重要部分的控制。你的老板可以不在晚上11点半打电话给你，但是仍然可以在这个时间给你发一封问询性质的，带有威胁性质的，你一登录就必须回复的邮件。电子邮件不单单让距离化为乌有，它也摧毁所有界限。在不同的时间，它可以是福，也可以是祸。
unit7
The Trying Twenties 经受考验的20来岁
Gail Sheehy
The Trying Twenties confronts us with the question of how to take hold in the adult world.Incandescent with our energies, having outgrown the family and the formlessness of our transiting years, we are impatient to pour ourselves into the exactly right form — our own way of living in the world. Or while looking for it, we want to tryout some provisional form. For now we are not only trying to prove ourselves competent in the larger society but intensely aware of being on trial.
接受考验的20来岁使我们面临的问题是应如何在成人世界里立足。这时的我们精力最为充沛，已不再需要家庭的呵护，也已度过了转型期的稚嫩，正急于寻求一种最适合自己的生活——在这个世界上属于我们自己的生活方式。或者说，在寻求生活模式之际，我们想尝试一下某种过渡性的方式，因为此刻我们不仅在努力证实自己在较大社会环境中的能力，而且还强烈地意识到正在接受考验。
Graduate student is a safe and familiar form for those who can afford it. Working toward a degree is something young people already know how to do. It postpones having to prove oneself in the bigger, bullying arena. Very few Americans had such a privilege before World War II; they reached the jumping-off point by the tender age of 16 or 18 or 20 and had to make their move ready or not. But today, a quarter of a century is often spent before an individual is expected or expects himself to fix his life’s course. Or more. Given the permissiveness to experiment, the prolonged schooling available, and the moratoria allowed, it is not unusual for an adventurer to be nearly 30 before firmly setting a course. 对那些经济上能承受的人来说，读研究生是一种既稳妥又熟悉的方式。攻读学位已是年轻人所熟谙的生活。它使得我们不必过早地投身于令人生畏的社会大竞技场上去证实自己的能力。在二战前，很少美国人有这种深造的荣幸；在16、18或20这样尚未成熟的年纪他们就到达了人生的出发点，并且不论他们是否已作好准备，就必须采取行动。但今天，常常是在四分之一世纪的时间过去之后，一个人才被指望或自我期盼去选定自己的人生道路。或者所需时间更长。对一个冒险者而言，既然容许他去试验人生，延长求学的时间，或是暂且搁置一下学业，那么临近30岁才确定人生道路也毫不为奇了。
Today, the seven-year spread of this stage seems commonly to be from the ages of 22 to 28.
今天，这一跨越七年的求学阶段似乎都介于22岁至28岁。
The tasks of this period are as enormous as they are ED exhilarating, To shape a dream, that vision of one’s own possibilities in the world that will generate energy, aliveness, and hope. To prepare for a lifework. To find a mentor if possible. And to form the capacity for intimacy without losing in the process whatever constancy of self we have thus far assembled. The first test structure must be erected around the life we choose to try.
这一时期的任务令人振奋，同样也艰巨繁重：使梦想成形，即在这个激发能量、活力和希望的世界中发现自身的潜在价值。为毕生将从事的工作作些准备。可能的话，寻求一位良师益友。并且培养与人亲近的能力，在此过程中又不致丢失迄今为止所形成的真实的自我。人生的第一个考验必须围绕着我们选择尝试的生活而展开。
One young man with vague aspirations of having his own creative enterprise, for instance, wasn’t sure if his forte would be photography or cabinetmaking or architecture. There was no sponsor in sight; his parents worked for the telephone company. So he took a job with Ma Bell. He married and together with his wife decided to postpone children indefinitely. Once the structure was set, he could throw all his free-time energies into experimenting within it. Every weekend would find him behind a camera or building bookcases for friends, vigorously testing the various creative streaks that might lead him to a satisfying lifework. 一个年轻人，对于如何展开自己富有创意的事业，志向未定，他拿不定主意到底他最擅长的是摄影、木工还是建筑。眼前他找不到赞助人；他的父母都在电话公司工作。所以他最后在贝尔公司那儿找了份工作。接着他结了婚，并与妻子一起决定无限期地延迟生孩子。一旦选择了这样的生活，他就能将所有业余时间的精力投入各种试验中。每个周末，他要么在忙着拍照，要么在为朋友做书橱，精力充沛地试验着各种创造性，这些创造性或许能引导他找到一种富有满足感的终身事业。
Singlehood can be a life structure of the twenties, too. The daughter of an ego-boosting father, taught to try anything she wished so long as she didn’t bail out before reaching the top, decided to become a traveling publicist. That meant being free to move from city to city as better jobs opened up. The structure that best served her purpose was to remain unattached. She shared apartments and lived in women’s hotels, having a wonderful time, until at 27 she landed the executive job of her dreams. 单身同样也能成为二十几岁年轻人的一种生活方式。有一位女儿，她的父亲是一个善于鼓励的人，他教育女儿去尝试她所希望做的一切，只要她不达到最高的目标决不罢休，这女孩最终决定成为一名旅行广告员。这意味着只要有更好的工作机会，她就能在城市之间自由地迁移。最符合她目标的生活方式便是单身无牵挂。她与别人合住公寓，或住女子旅馆，日子过得十分快乐，直到27岁时她获得了梦寐以求的主管的职位。
“I had no feeling of rootlessness because each time I moved, the next job offered a higher status or salary. And in every city I traveled, I would look up old friends from college and meet them for dinner. That gave me a stabilizing influence. ”
“我一点儿也没有漂泊不定的感觉，因为我每次搬迁，下一份工作都会带给我更高的职位或薪水。并且在每个我所游历的城市，我都会去探望一下大学时代的老朋友，并与他们共进晚餐。这对我来说就起到了一种安定的作用。”
At 30 — Shazam! The same woman was suddenly married and pregnant with twins. Surrounded by a totally new and unforeseen life structure, she was pleasantly baffled to find herself content. “I guess I was ready for a family without knowing it.”
到了30岁——变！这位女士突然结了婚并怀上了一对双胞胎。一下子被一种全新而未曾预料的生活所包围，她既困惑又高兴，发现自己对此十分满足。“我猜想自己在不自觉中已作好成家的准备了。”
The Trying Twenties is one of the longer and more stable periods, stable, that is, in comparison with the rockier passages that lead to and exit from it. Although each nail driven into our first external life structure is tentative, a tryout, once we have made our commitments we are convinced they are the right ones. The momentum of exploring within the structure generally carries us through the twenties without a major disruption of it.
接受考验的20岁是人生中一段较为漫长且更为稳定的一个阶段，说它稳定，则是与它之前和之后更为不稳定的人生阶段相比较而言的。虽然我们在外部世界初次寻求生活方式所进行的每一个实践都是不确定的、试探性的，然而一旦我们作出承诺，我们便会坚信自己作出了正确的选择。而探索这种生活方式的动力通常会推动我们走过20岁的人生阶段，并不会瓦解而导致大的变化。
One of the terrifying aspects of the twenties is the conviction that the choices we make are irrevocable. If we choose a graduate school or join a firm, get married or don’t marry, move to the suburbs or forego travel abroad, decide against children or against a career, we fear in our marrow that we might have to live with that choice forever. It is largely a false fear. Change is not only possible; some alteration of our original choices is probably inevitable. But since in our twenties we’re new at making major life choices, we cannot imagine that possibilities for a better integration will occur to us later on, when some inner growth has taken place.
20岁中令人害怕的一个方面是，我们都深信，一旦作出选择，便无可挽回。无论我们选择读研或参加工作，结婚或单身，搬入郊区或放弃出国旅行，放弃孩子或放弃事业，我们都会从骨子里害怕自己的一生就此定型了。而这种恐惧大都是没有道理的。变化不仅是可能的，而且对我们最初的选择作些更改甚至有可能是不可避免的。但既然我们在20几岁时对于作出人生重大选择都没有经验，我们便无法想象到将来可能会有更好的融合机遇出现在生活中，而那时我们的内心将变得成熟起来。
Two impulses, as always, are at work during this period. 在这一阶段往往有两股冲动的力量在发挥作用。
One is to build a firm, safe structure for the future by making strong commitments, to be set. Yet people who slip into a ready-made form without much self-examination are likely to find themselves following a locked-in pattern.
一种冲动是通过作出郑重承诺，为将来选择一种稳定可靠的生活方式，并不再改变。然而许多人未经充分自省便进入某种现成的生活模式，却往往可能发现自己正过着一种固定不变的生活。
The other urge is to explore and experiment, keeping any structure tentative and therefore easily reversible. Taken to the extreme by people who skip through their twenties from one trial job and one limited personal encounter to another, this becomes the transient pattern.
另一种冲动是去探索和试验，使每种生活方式处于尝试性状态，因此很容易改变。有些人将这一冲动引向极端，他们在整个20来岁阶段不停地更换工作，不停地结识新交。这便成为一种总在改变的生活方式。
The balance struck between these two impulses makes for differences in the way people pass through this period of provisional adulthood and largely determines the way we feel about ourselves at the end of it. 如何平衡这两种冲动，便造成了人们在经历成年过渡期方面的差异，并很大程度上决定了我们在这个阶段结束时有怎样的自我感觉。
The Power of Illusions幻想的力量
However galvanizing our vision in the early twenties, it is far from being complete. Even while we are delighted to display our shiny new capacities, secret fears persist that we are not going to get away with it. Somebody is going to discover the imposter.
无论我们在20岁早期如何激发着幻想，都远非十分完满。即使当我们高兴地施展着那些辉煌的新才能的时候，内心也始终害怕我们不会侥幸成功。总有人会发现我们其实是装模作样的骗子。
To have seen the vivacious, 24-year-old junior executive at her work in a crack San Francisco public relations firm, one would probably not have guessed the trepidations underneath, “I realized that I had not grown up. I was amazed at how well I functioned at work. When clients would deal with me as an equal, I’d think, ’I got away with it,’ but the feeling wasn’t one of joy. It was terror that eventually they would find out I was just a child. Simply not equipped. The other half of the time, I would have tremendous confidence and arrogance about who I was — a
hotshot out there accomplishing all sorts of things and everybody thinking I was so terrific. I was like two people.”
你见过这位活泼的年仅24岁的初级女主管在旧金山一家第一流的公共关系公司上班的样子以后，你恐怕猜想不到她外表下内心的惶恐：“我知道自己还没有长大。我自己都惊讶在工作上我能表现得这么好。当客户平等地与我打交道时，我会想，‘我侥幸成功了’，但这种感觉并非喜悦，而是害怕他们最后会发现我只不过是个孩子而已。完全不具备什么能力。而另一半的时间里，我又对自己感到无比地自信和自傲，我——一个了不起的人，在工作中做到完成了各种各样的工作，每个人都认为我棒极了。我就像是两个不同的人似的。”
Many of us are not consciously aware of such fears. With enough surface bravado to fool the people we meet, we fool ourselves as well. But the memory of formlessness is never far beneath. So we hasten to try on life’s uniforms and possible partners, in search of the perfect fit. 我们中的许多人尚未有意识地认识到这种恐惧。当我们表面的虚张声势足以愚弄我们所认识的人时，我们也在愚弄着自己。但是对自己尚未成型的记忆仍然
清晰可寻。所以我们在追寻着最完美最合适自己的一切的过程中，匆忙地尝试着各种生活方式和可能的伴侣。
“Perfect” is that person we imbue with the capacity to enliven and support our vision or the person we believe in and want to help. Two centuries ago, a fictional young poet in Germany, torn by his hopeless passion for the “perfect” woman, drank a glass of wine, raised a pistol, and put a bullet through his head. It was a shot heard round the world. The lovelorn dropout who fired it was the hero of Goethe’s novelThe Sorrows of Young Werther, which contributed to the romantic movement that colors our expectations of love to this day. Goethe himself was a poet of 25 when he wrote the story. And like the fictional Werther, he suffered from an infatuation with a married woman, an unreachable woman, whose very mystery invited his fantasies of perfection. Goethe’s hero struck such a chord in young people throughout Europe that a wave of suicides followed the book’s publication.
“完美”的人是那位被我们灌输在头脑中的能激活并支持我们幻想的人，或是那位我们信任并愿意帮助的人。两百年前，一个小说中的年轻德国诗人，他因对一位“完美”女人无望的爱情而备受折磨，喝下一杯酒后，举枪射穿了自己的脑袋。这一枪声响彻世界。打响这一枪的那位失恋的弃世者是歌德小说《少年维特的烦恼》书中的男主人公，这本小说促成的浪漫主义运动直到今天仍影响着我们对爱情的期望。当歌德写这本小说时，他自己正是个25岁的诗人。像小说中的维特一样，他痛苦地痴迷于一位已婚的女人，一个得不到的女人，正是她的神秘激起了他对完美的幻想。歌德的主人公是如此打动着全欧洲青年的心，以至于书出版后，掀起了一股自杀的浪潮。
Today, as then, it’s enlightening to speculate on the degree to which a young man invents his romanticized version of theloved woman. She may be seen as the magical chameleon who will be a mother when he needs it and in the next instant the child requiring his protection, as well as the seductress who proves his potency, the soother of anxieties (who shall have none of her own), the guarantor of his immortality through the conversion of his seed. And to what degree does the young woman invent the man she marries? She often sees in him possibilities that no one else recognizes and pictures herself within his dream as the one person who truly understands. Such illusions are the stuff of which the twenties are made.
今天，如同当时，思考一下年轻男子是如何虚构出他那浪漫化了的热恋女子，也很启人深思。她可以被看作是具有魔力的变色龙般的人物，在他需要母爱时便是一位母亲，下一个瞬间又成为需要他保护的孩子，既是能证明他性能力的风情万种的女子，又是忧虑时能抚慰他的女性（她自己则全无忧虑），而且还能通过为他传宗接代以保存他的不朽。那么年轻女子在多大程度上虚构出她将来的伴侣呢？她经常在他身上看到其他人所未发现的能力，并把自己幻想成他梦中那位唯一了解他的知心人。这些幻想就是20多岁的人所产生出来的。
“Illusions” is usually thought of as a pejorative, something we should get rid of if we suspect we have it. The illusions of the twenties, however, may be essential to infuse our first commitments with excitement and intensity, and to sustain us in those commitments long enough to gain us some experience in living.
“幻想”通常被视为贬义词，是我们一旦察觉自己有此念头就应排除的东西。然而，20岁时的幻想，对于激发和强化我们的最初承诺，对于支撑我们去履行承诺以获取生活经验来说，都可能是十分重要的。
The tasks before us are exciting, conflicting, and sometimes
overwhelming, but of one thing most of us are certain in our twenties. 展现在我们面前的任务是令人兴奋、充满矛盾、有时又是势不可挡的，但有一件事对我们中大多数人来说是很确定的。
Will power will overcome all. 意志力将克服一切。
Money may be scarce, the loans and laundry endless. The evil bait of selling out” may tempt the would-be doctor, writer, social worker. But clearly, or so it seems, we have only to apply our strong minds and sturdy wills to the wheel of life, and sooner or later our destiny will bend under our control.
我们可能囊中羞涩。有考虑不完的金钱问题和处理不完的生活琐事。那些会让我们背弃理想的邪恶诱饵可能引诱着未来的医生、作家和社会工作者。但是很
明显地，或看来如此，我们只要把我们坚强不屈的意志力运用到生活中去，这样迟早我们的命运将掌握在自己的手中。
A self-deception? Yes, in large part. But also a most useful modus operandi at this stage. For if we didn’t believe in the omnipotent force of our intelligence, if we were not convinced that we could will ourselves into being whatever kind of persons we wish to be, it wouldn’t make much sense to try. Doubts immobilize. Believing that we are independent and competent enough to master the external tasks constantly fortifies us in our attempts to become so.
这难道是自欺欺人么？是的，很大程度上是如此。但也是在这阶段的一种非常有益的做法。因为如果我们不相信我们的才智具有无所不能的力量，如果我们不是深信我们能凭意志使自己成为任何理想中的人物，那么尝试便没有什么意义了。疑虑会使你裹足不前。相信我们的独立性和才干足以让我们去驾驭外部世界的各种事务，这种信念在我们尝试着去这样做时不断地给予我们力量。 One True Course in Life 一条正确的人生道路
If and when we feel we have made a friend of the real world and are about to fix our course, a tone of optimism and vitality propels us forward in giant steps. We are most brimming with aliveness when we are just about to gain a solid form. This applies throughout life and to the different forms we may take. But upon discovering our very first independent form, we may assume it is the forever one and cling to it obstinately. 如果并且当我们感到能够与现实世界达成融洽并且即将确定我们的人生道路的时候，乐观精神和勃勃生机会推动我们大步前进。在我们即将形成自己的生活模式的时候，我们总是洋溢着生机。这种情况适用于整个人生，也适用于我们所选择的不同的生活模式。但是一旦我们第一次找到自己独立的生活模式时，我们可能认为这个模式将一成不变并将执着地固守着这一模式。
That is why people in their twenties commonly insist what they are doing is the one true course in life. Any suggestion that we are like our parents raises our hackles. What if we were to find out the truth? That the parental figures, unknowingly internalized as our guardians, provoke the very feelings of safety that allow us to dare all these great firsts of the twenties. They are also the inner dictators that hold us back.
这就是为什么人们在他们20多岁时普遍地坚信他们所选择的是一条唯一正确的人生道路。任何说我们像父母亲的暗示都会激怒我们。如果我们发现了事实真相会怎么样呢？父母的形象，潜移默化中已成为我们生活的向导，使我们产生安全感，使我们敢于在20多岁时尝试所有那些了不起的第一次。父母的形象同时也是在我们内心深处告诫我们不要去冒险的发号施令者。
To tell such a thing to most 25-year-olds will call forth howls of denial. This is precisely the interior reality from which each of us at this stage is trying to make a break. We are utterly convinced that all our notions spring full blown, as if by magic, from our own unique selves. 对大多数25岁的人说这些将会招来他们的大声否认。这正是我们内心世界的真实反映，我们中每一个人在这个阶段都试图与之决裂。我们深信，我们所有的观念都是一蹴而就般形成的，仿佛具有魔力一样，源于我们独一无二的自我。
At all costs, any parts of our personality that might interfere with our chosen “one true course in life” must for the time being be buried. We cannot, will not, dare not know how strongly we are influenced by the deep tugs of the past, by identifications with our parents and the defense mechanisms we learned in childhood. Indeed, if there is a blemish on our behavior or something annoying about the one we love, this is the age when we are certain all that’s needed is to have it pointed out.
不管怎么样，我们个性中任何可能影响我们选择“一条正确人生道路”的方面都将暂时被抹杀。我们不能、不愿而且也不敢去弄清我们在多大程度上受到过去的影响：即与父母的同一性以及我们在童年时代所学会的防御机制。事实上，如果我们行为有什么瑕疵或者我们所爱的人有什么令人烦恼的地方，这个年纪我们确信所需要做的一切就是把那一点指出来。
“If there’s something about me you don’t like, just tell me,” says the newlywed anxious to please. “I’ll change it.” If he orshe is not forthcoming with such an offer, the other one is determined to change it for the partner. “He may drink a little too much now,” the bride confides to her friend, “but I’ll reform him.”
“如果我有什么让你感到讨厌，告诉我好了，”急于取悦对方的新婚夫妇会这样说。“我会改的。”如果她或者他没有这样提出来，另外一方也会为了伴侣而下决心将其改变。“他也许喝得多了一点，”新娘向她的朋友倾诉，“但我会改变他。”
Examination of the internal forces acting upon us will resume III the thirties, when we are more stabilized externally. Well into our forties, we will still be dredging up exactly those suppressed parts we are now making every effort to ignore.
对于在我们身上发挥作用的内在力量所作的审视到了30多岁时会重新开始，那时我们在外部世界的生活已经更为稳定。而到了40多岁，我们仍在发掘的恰是那些我们现在正尽力忽略的被抑制的内在的个性。 2012-04-13 23:41