VOA标准英语2011--Supersizing the American Dream Home
时间：2019-01-14 作者：英语课 分类：VOA标准英语2011年(六月)
Supersizing the American Dream Home
This is a story about something called "McMansions," the backlash to McMansions, and the backlash to the backlash about McMansions.
McMansions are homes - new and very big homes. The name is borrowed from the "super-sized" drinks and French fries and sandwiches at McDonald's fast-food restaurants. Build a McMansion, and you've super-sized the American Dream of home ownership.
They're built by people who want all sorts of amenities 1 and can afford them: lots of bedrooms, a spacious 2 lawn, a three- or four-car garage, maybe even a swimming pool. Throw in a library and a mega-kitchen fit for a king's chef and the result is a home of gargantuan 3 proportions.
That's fine and dandy if you have a rolling country field on which to erect 4 this monster. But squeeze one onto a modest lot in an older community, and you've created, in the eyes of your neighbors, an eyesore that's absurdly out of scale with its surroundings.
For them, a McMansion is not a dream. It's a nightmare.
Citizens who are upset by the super-sized houses going up in their neighborhood have four choices: move, win the lottery 5 and build their own McMansion, get used to the monolith next door or, if it's not too late, get the city council to pass a regulation to limit the size of new houses in their area.
Increasingly, that last solution seems to be working. Communities across the country are passing stricter building restrictions 6 to keep out what some have sneeringly 7 called "starter castles."
So what's the backlash to the backlash? In zoning hearings, courtrooms, and online blogs, we're hearing a lot of sentiments such as this, in response to an MSN Business story online: "It is really no one's business what I decide to build upon my own land or property if I follow the building codes," the writer snorted. "This is the United States of America, and if I want to build a large or small home, it is my right."
- The campsite is close to all local amenities. 营地紧靠当地所有的便利设施。
- Parks and a theatre are just some of the town's local amenities. 公园和戏院只是市镇娱乐设施的一部分。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Our yard is spacious enough for a swimming pool.我们的院子很宽敞，足够建一座游泳池。
- The room is bright and spacious.这房间很豁亮。
- My gargantuan,pristine machine was good for writing papers and playing solitaire,and that was all.我那庞大的、早期的计算机只适合写文章和玩纸牌游戏，就这些。
- Right away,I realized this was a mistake of gargantuan proportions.我立刻意识到这是一个巨大的错误。
- She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
- Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。
- He won no less than ￡5000 in the lottery.他居然中了5000英镑的奖券。
- They thought themselves lucky in the lottery of life.他们认为自己是变幻莫测的人生中的幸运者。
- I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
- a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制
- Guan and Zhang had nothing more to say, But they walked away sneeringly. 关羽、张飞无话，冷笑着走了。