TED演讲:新美国梦(4)-英语课

时间：2019-01-18 作者：英语课 分类：TED演讲国际问题篇

英语课

My great-grandfather was a drunk in Detroit, who sometimes managed to hold down a factory job. 我的曾祖父曾经住在底特律，他是个酒鬼，有时勉强去工厂工作。

He had, as unbelievable as it might sound, 21 children, with one woman, my great-grandmother, who died at 47 years old of ovarian cancer. 他和我的曾祖母有21个孩子，听起来难以置信，我的曾祖母因为卵巢癌，于47岁去世。
Now, I'm pregnant with my second child, and I cannot even fathom 1 what she must have gone through. 现在，我怀着第二个孩子，我甚至不敢想象她经历了什么。
And if you're trying to do the math -- there were six sets of twins. 如果你们算一下的话，其中有6对双胞胎。
So my grandfather, their son, became a traveling salesman, and he lived boom and bust 2. 我的祖父，也就是他们的儿子，当了一名旅行推销员，生活起伏不定。
So my dad grew up answering the door for debt collectors and pretending his parents weren't home. 因此我父亲的童年一直就是，给催债的人开门，假装说父母不在家。
He actually took his braces 3 off himself with pliers in the garage, 我祖父说没有钱去看正牙医。
when his father admitted he didn't have money to go back to the orthodontist. 我父亲就自己在车库里用钳子把牙套拔掉。
So my dad, unsurprisingly, became a bankruptcy 4 lawyer. Couldn't write this in a novel, right? 因此不足为奇，我父亲成了一位破产清算律师。这可不能写在小说里，对吧？
He was obsessed 5 with providing a secure foundation for my brother and I. 他一心想为我们姐弟俩提供稳定的生活。
So I ask these questions by way of a few generations of struggle. 因此我通过描述几代人的奋斗，回答了刚才的问题
My parents made sure that I grew up on a kind of steady ground that allows one to question and risk and leap. 父母想确保我的成长建立在稳固的基础上，在这种基础上就会产生质疑、风险、冒险。
And ironically, and probably sometimes to their frustration 6, 具有讽刺意味的是，可能对此我的父母也很失望，
it is their steadfast 7 commitment to security that allows me to question its value, 正是因为他们想要为我提供稳定生活的决心，我才开始质疑其价值
or at least its value as we've historically defined it in the 21st century. 或是说，21世纪对其价值的定义。

1 fathom

v.领悟，彻底了解

I really couldn't fathom what he was talking about.我真搞不懂他在说些什么。
What these people hoped to achieve is hard to fathom.这些人希望实现些什么目标难以揣测。

2 bust

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

3 braces

n.吊带，背带；托架( brace的名词复数 )；箍子；括弧；（儿童）牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来