时间:2019-03-09 作者:英语课 分类:英语听力文摘 English Digest


英语课

  Who Believes in Vampires 1?

吸血鬼,傳說中永生不老的超自然不死生物。吸血鬼的典型形象和特征是:牙齒尖長,皮膚白皙,眼睛发红。吸血鬼害怕照射到陽光,在太陽下會烧起来变成灰。但是也认为高等级的吸血鬼可以维持在太陽下不死,只是能力有所下降,這些可在陽光下橫行無阻的吸血鬼被稱為「日行者(Daywalker)」,但仍然在「常規」的吸血鬼範圍內。由於吸血鬼的恢復能力極強,所以一般武器很難使吸血鬼致命,只有陽光能夠殺死吸血鬼。


  The belief in vampires is one of the most wide-spread of superstitions 2; “real-life” instances of vampirism having been documented for hundreds of years.

How can all those eye-witnesses to these creatures of the night be wrong? One answer modern science gives us is that they weren’t all wrong: a lot of the written accounts of vampirism are accurate descriptions of events that actually took place. It’s just that the interpretation 3 was flawed.

Some historians now suggest the real impetus 4 driving belief in vampires was plague. Plague follows the same course originally ascribed to vampires: a single member of a community dies, after which the immediate 5 family(直系亲属) withers 7 away(1)one by one. The neighbors are the next to go, and so on. Victims of the original “vampire” exhibit a mounting fatigue 8, as if their very life were being drained from them.

Vampires may also have acted as a self-reinforcing myth. In the days before embalming 9, bodies were simply buried in porous 10 wooden boxes. Under these conditions, natural decay causes a gradual bloating due to the release of gases. It may even cause blood to emerge from the corpse’s mouth as the lungs are squeezed — both sure signs of vampirism. To top things off, driving a stake through the chest of a body in this state will indeed cause it to emit an eerie 11 cry — not because it is still alive, but by the sudden force exerted on the lungs.

So, people who tried to rid their towns of vampires could be said to have been acting 12 rationally, given the limited medical knowledge of the time. The remedy never worked, of course –which is why vampires are still with us to this day.

Notes:

(1)wither 6 away枯萎;幻灭

Doomed 13 just like you and me two adjacent leaves, Ruojiruoli, and then wither away together.

妳我注定就像两片相邻的树叶,若即若离,然后壹起枯萎零落。



n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 );吸血蝠;高利贷者;(舞台上的)活板门
  • The most effective weapon against the vampires is avampire itself. 对付吸血鬼最有效的武器就是吸血鬼自己。 来自电影对白
  • If vampires existed, don`t you think we would`ve found them by now? 如果真有吸血鬼,那我们怎么还没有找到他们呢? 来自电影对白
迷信,迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 )
  • Old superstitions seem incredible to educated people. 旧的迷信对于受过教育的人来说是不可思议的。
  • Do away with all fetishes and superstitions. 破除一切盲目崇拜和迷信。
n.解释,说明,描述;艺术处理
  • His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
  • Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。
n.推动,促进,刺激;推动力
  • This is the primary impetus behind the economic recovery.这是促使经济复苏的主要动力。
  • Her speech gave an impetus to my ideas.她的讲话激发了我的思绪。
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的
  • His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
  • We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。
vt.使凋谢,使衰退,(用眼神气势等)使畏缩;vi.枯萎,衰退,消亡
  • She grows as a flower does-she will wither without sun.她象鲜花一样成长--没有太阳就会凋谢。
  • In autumn the leaves wither and fall off the trees.秋天,树叶枯萎并从树上落下来。
马肩隆
  • The girl's pitiful history would wring one's withers. 这女孩子的经历令人心碎。
  • "I will be there to show you," and so Mr. Withers withdrew. “我会等在那里,领你去看房间的,"威瑟斯先生这样说着,退了出去。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
n.疲劳,劳累
  • The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
  • I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。
v.保存(尸体)不腐( embalm的现在分词 );使不被遗忘;使充满香气
  • The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming. 尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • They were experts at preserving the bodies of the dead by embalming them with special lotions. 他们具有采用特种药物洗剂防止尸体腐烂的专门知识。 来自辞典例句
adj.可渗透的,多孔的
  • He added sand to the soil to make it more porous.他往土里掺沙子以提高渗水性能。
  • The shell has to be slightly porous to enable oxygen to pass in.外壳不得不有些细小的孔以便能使氧气通过。
adj.怪诞的;奇异的;可怕的;胆怯的
  • It's eerie to walk through a dark wood at night.夜晚在漆黑的森林中行走很是恐怖。
  • I walked down the eerie dark path.我走在那条漆黑恐怖的小路上。
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的
  • Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她,她只是假装的。
  • During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代,她的表演生涯黯然失色。
命定的
  • The court doomed the accused to a long term of imprisonment. 法庭判处被告长期监禁。
  • A country ruled by an iron hand is doomed to suffer. 被铁腕人物统治的国家定会遭受不幸的。
学英语单词
air guitarists
AJA, A.J.A.
alyssa
ammonium ceric nitrate
Anglicity
anxiety state
applanata
axoaxonic
Bekesbourne
bog-roll
brezhnevism
Broad-Church
bromine trifuloride
Bromus remotiflorus
catoblepas
cement column
cephalopholis aurantia
cepstrum analysis
close operation
coaxial mount
coldcocking
concentrated radioactive liquid wastes
condenser start motor
Continental Celtic
craven
denitrifies
e-rail
epinephrin(e) hydrochoride
etheric acid
family sphaerobolaceaes
flood basin
Folin-Macallum's method
free vibration test
gamabufotalin
geostationary earth orbit
hyltons
illuminating gas
industrial X-ray radiographic equipment
inlaid wood
ion-cyclotron
junction amelodental
Kobuleti
lavelled
leadless colour
legendous
lets-out
lever for adjusting
liberalized
load oil
long induction loop
low impact
migratory cyclone
molek
mottu
Mulegé
Munster
naikis
newsweeks
non-destructive detector
non-sense
off-balance sheet financing
overspeed braking electro-magnetic valve
panorama view
paravanes
PDLA
Pervomayskiy
phase sampling pulse
plasma tail of comet
portable equipment
prescripted
primitive ovum
respublika
ribbon work
Richardia brasiliensis
root-canal reamer
seine rivers
self-expansion
shaft-packing leakage
slide-rule general
small-size coal mine
steel shape
sterilization by radiation
stress relaxation time
substantives
subtitles
sunken poop
Sutura sphenofrontalis
swinging root
Swycer
table handling
theory of reflection and cognitive analysis
toggle-lever grip gear
trefa
underground stem
vertical transform
visual quality
vito
voltage dependent resistivity
wave trace
wave-formed mouth
width-diameter ratio
yolk envelope