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
3-butenyl
A-zone(A-horizon)
access-to-plant
algebra homomorphism
Aminex resin
angle measure
antivirbin
Antseranana
auto-decrementing
bananadine
barrel of puppethead
beat generator
ben hogans
beyond-the-object art
blind to the world
boy-wonders
butterfly style
cantilever gantry
carboniums
casesiumphotocell
catharosine
caution board
Chrome OS
clasterosporium eriobotryae hara
clutch disk
complete controllability
continuous wave generator
conversion scales
cts-v
curvemeter
dental vessel
descendence
deuterium oxide
Eadmund I
enstamped
Entosiphon
ethyl phenylbarbiturate
exsudation cyst
FALCIDIAN LAW
firenadoes
Flame Wars
genus kennedyas
glatthaar
graftling
hair-pin
Impatiens paradoxa
inversion factor
ir (infrared)
japopinic acid
laccifer lacca parasite
land jobber
liopelmas
locustae
low-temperature production
made an impression on
March of Time
mass rapid transit systems
MBR-O (memory buffer register,odd)
medium ring
minifloppy mass storage
morbillivirus canine distemper
naupathia
no message
non-linear semi-group
Osiander's sign
oxalic acid poisoning
pantaloons
Pedro Ximenez
perfect electrolyte
Pierry
plantier
post-deng
pylie
red-fin pargo
Rhinopteridae
safeguard practice
sandry
schistosomiasis mekongi
secret harbour
shellee
sinter cake
sky surfing
soda sanidinire
software company
solid fat index
stipulaceous
supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet)
supplanters
taper-thread
thermo-magnetic alloy
transphosphorylate
twelt
unifunctional circuit
universal judgment
vacuum-cleaner alloy
wasband
watch your language
white-dot generator
wonks
yashiki
year-high