时间:2019-03-02 作者:英语课 分类:英语美文


英语课

 What's in a word? Quite a lot, I suspect.


Travellers to Francophone and Hispanophone countries will have noticed a superiority of everyday social interactions to those observable in our own country. They retain a slightly formulaic ceremoniousness that is now entirely 1 lacking from our own culture, and that comes (at least to me) as a great relief. If there's one thing that ought to be avoided in casual, everyday encounters, it's saying the first thing that comes into your head.
I attribute the superiority in part to their continued use of the terms Monsieur and Madame and Se?or and Se?ora. It is not affectation, but a deeply ingrained habit. You don't go into a shop in France without saying "Bonjour, monsieur" or "Bonjour, madame".
The other day, I was crossing the street in Paris reading a book, as is my slightly hazardous 2 wont 3, when a man on a bicycle nearly ran me down. "Attention, monsieur! Attention, monsieur!" he cried, not forgetting his manners even in his irritation 4. I shouted an appropriate apology after him, rather gratified and reassured 5 by the whole episode.
Goodness knows what an English cyclist would have shouted in the circumstance: almost certainly something unprintable in a respectable journal.
For some reason we in England can no longer use Sir and Madam in an unstilted way. The last time I called an adult Sir was in addressing a coroner while explaining how a patient came to hang himself. As for Madam, I used it only when angry, for example after a woman launched into me with reflections upon my character when I had inadvertently and unknowingly stood in her way for a few moments. "You have a tongue in your head, Madam, have you not, and could have asked me to move?" In my mouth, then, Madam is a term of abuse.
Why can we not use Sir and Madam? It obviously has something to do with our ideological 6 revulsion against any taint 7 of hierarchy 8. So in large parts of the country, I am most commonly addressed by spotty young men as "mate". This aggressively levelling and proletarianising mode of address has spread very rapidly. The trouble is that objecting to it (which I have on occasion done) sounds pompous 9 and priggish, in the same way that objecting to obscenity always appears prudish 10 and narrow-minded. There seems to be a Gresham's Law of etiquette 11: the coarse drives out the refined. The Bolsheviks knew this very well, and welcomed it.
I should like to start a society for the restoration of Sir and Madam in everyday speech. Unfortunately, all the causes I espouse 12 are lost.

ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地
  • The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
  • His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。
adj.(有)危险的,冒险的;碰运气的
  • These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
  • Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯
  • He was wont to say that children are lazy.他常常说小孩子们懒惰。
  • It is his wont to get up early.早起是他的习惯。
n.激怒,恼怒,生气
  • He could not hide his irritation that he had not been invited.他无法掩饰因未被邀请而生的气恼。
  • Barbicane said nothing,but his silence covered serious irritation.巴比康什么也不说,但是他的沉默里潜伏着阴郁的怒火。
adj.使消除疑虑的;使放心的v.再保证,恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词)
  • The captain's confidence during the storm reassured the passengers. 在风暴中船长的信念使旅客们恢复了信心。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
  • The doctor reassured the old lady. 医生叫那位老妇人放心。 来自《简明英汉词典》
a.意识形态的
  • He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
  • He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作,对我有很大帮助。
n.污点;感染;腐坏;v.使感染;污染
  • Everything possible should be done to free them from the economic taint.应尽可能把他们从经济的腐蚀中解脱出来。
  • Moral taint has spread among young people.道德的败坏在年轻人之间蔓延。
n.等级制度;统治集团,领导层
  • There is a rigid hierarchy of power in that country.那个国家有一套严密的权力等级制度。
  • She's high up in the management hierarchy.她在管理阶层中地位很高。
adj.傲慢的,自大的;夸大的;豪华的
  • He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities.他有点自大,自视甚高。
  • He is a good man underneath his pompous appearance. 他的外表虽傲慢,其实是个好人。
adj.装淑女样子的,装规矩的,过分规矩的;adv.过分拘谨地
  • I'm not prudish but I think these photographs are obscene.我并不是假正经的人,但我觉得这些照片非常淫秽。
  • She was sexually not so much chaste as prudish.她对男女关系与其说是注重贞节,毋宁说是持身谨慎。
n.礼仪,礼节;规矩
  • The rules of etiquette are not so strict nowadays.如今的礼仪规则已不那么严格了。
  • According to etiquette,you should stand up to meet a guest.按照礼节你应该站起来接待客人。
v.支持,赞成,嫁娶
  • Today,astronomers espouse the theory that comets spawn the swarms.如今,天文学家们支持彗星产生了流星团的说法。
  • Some teachers enthusiastically espouse the benefits to be gained from educational software.有些教师热烈赞同可以从教学软件中得到好处的观点。
标签: 英语美文
学英语单词
active immunity
ajaccios
Almyropotamos
Ameca
amedo
angon
average daily calling rate
ball and inner ring assembly
barge to barge transfer
bills drawn under letter of credit
binary to decimal conversion
binnein mor
blowing spray
bomb calorimeters
branches at home and abroad
brick laid with mortar
capricorn beetle
carib woods
chimbley
complete set of eigenstates
contact flange
core and winding assembly
darrayne
disprovide
diverting dam
draw ... up
drift epoch
droseras
electron paramagnetic resonance
europium acetate
exchange volume
field investment
flairing
gemmifications
general call signal
Gentiloni
genus pedilanthuss
global liquidity
gone over
Hai Phong
heat-producing reaction
hflo
independent fault
inlaces
internal fuel
ionic speaker
irreversible circulation
ks-standard loading
latex examination gloves
LAVINIA
lipophilic compound
literatize
Loboc
macrocyclic compounds
metal-semiconductor-metal diode
monosuits
nonpsychological
notched furnace
oil sump tank
pallidofugal
Parafasciolopsis
pass-over offset
pentaradiate
pickup points
Pillsbury, Lake
plaque-infested port
plasma lipids
playdohs
public lawyer
Puccinia epimedii
put one's best foot first
radicicol
ratten-
readmitance
reclaiming by centrifuge
red-shank
relational instruction
resource productivity
sampling length
scare someone out of his wits
seasonal group profile code
settleability test
small wiring
soft corruption
spoliation
steam and gas
stereochemical formula
sun-bathing
suppression hangover time
tax reimbursement for export
thermofocal
tracepoint
tunnel in rock
twofold degeneracy
uncorrugated
unfavorable variance
union colourimeter
wetting of cloth
whidder
Wycakon-G
yudha