用法学习: 1. 高中生的新型公交站牌设计: You could dash up the hill冲上山 if you knew your bus was around the corner or
duck across 慢悠悠的, 晃过去 the road to grab coffee without fear of missing it. "I
think they were possibly a bit flustered ( feeling confused, embarrassed, or nervous, especially because you have too much to do or too little time to do something. She arrived at the interview late, flustered, and hot.) or maybe a bit quiet about
their plans to roll out things like this," he said. "Because I was
talking to them about it and they wouldn't say much不愿多说 but they were very
interested in terms of knowing all the details surrounding my design and
how the system works." 2. Longreach cafe Eagles Nest Bar and Grill in firing line for ( be in the firing line
(British, American & Australian) also be on the firing line 在火线上 (American & Australian) if someone or something is in the firing line, they are likely to be criticized, attacked, or got rid of The judge found himself in the firing line from women's groups after his controversial comments about sexual assault. Recent cuts in council budgets mean that concessionary fares were next on the firing line. ) sign declaring 'sorry, no Muslims'. look/hunt someone or something up I. 找到. 找出来. to seek someone, a group, or something out. I lost track of Sally. I'll try to look her up and get in touch with her. lam going to look up an old friend when lam in Chicago. I am going to hunt that old gang up. Ted came into town and looked up his favorite pizza place. II. to seek information about someone or something in a book or listing. I don't recognize his name. I'll look him up and see what I can find. I'll look up this person in a reference book. She looked herself up in the telephone book to make sure her name was spelled correctly. III. Make social contact with someone: he would look her up when he was in the area. We emailed for a bit too but are now out of contact - I should probably look her up again some time. Man, I seriously need to look you up when I come visit my parents in Spring. Sometimes, an Italian friend on a visit to London would look him up. look up 看好, 改善 to show promise of improving. My prospects for a job are looking up. Conditions are looking up. 3. The body of a Nepalese man killed in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami has
been exhumed ( exhume 挖开. 挖棺. to remove a dead person's body from where it is buried, especially in order to find out how they died. ) and cremated火化, bringing long-awaited closure 有个交代 to his family. It has been almost a decade since the tsunami took thousands of lives along the southern coast of Thailand. Coverture (sometimes spelled couverture) was a legal doctrine whereby, upon marriage, a woman's legal rights and obligations were subsumed by those of her husband, in accordance with the wife's legal status of feme covert. An unmarried woman, a feme sole, had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name. Coverture was enshrined in the common law of England for several centuries and throughout most of the 19th century, influencing some other common-law jurisdictions. According to Arianne Chernock, coverture did not apply in Scotland, but whether it applied in Wales is unclear. Under traditional English common law, an adult unmarried woman was considered to have the legal status of feme sole, while a married woman had the status of feme covert. These terms are English spellings of medieval Anglo-Norman phrases (the modern standard French spellings would be femme seule "single woman" and femme couverte, literally "covered woman"). A feme sole had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name, while a feme covert was not recognized as having legal rights and obligations distinct from those of her husband in most respects. Instead, through marriage a woman's existence was incorporated into that of her husband, so that she had very few recognized individual rights of her own. As it has been pithily expressed, husband and wife were one person as far as the law was concerned, and that person was the husband. A married woman could not own property, sign legal documents or enter into a contract, obtain an education against her husband's wishes, or keep a salary for herself. If a wife was permitted to work, under the laws of coverture, she was required to relinquish her wages to her husband. In certain cases, a wife did not have individual legal liability for her misdeeds since it was legally assumed that she was acting under the orders of her husband, and generally a husband and a wife were not allowed to testify either for or against each other. The phrase "the law is an ass(Said of the application of the law that is contrary to common sense. It is easy to find reference works and websites that attribute the phrase to Charles Dickens, who put it into print in Oliver Twist,
1838. When Mr. Bumble, the unhappy spouse of a domineering wife, is
told in court that "...the law supposes that your wife acts under your
direction", replies: "If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass - a idiot".)" was popularized by Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, when the character Mr. Bumble is informed that "the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction". Mr. Bumble replies, "if the law supposes that ... the law is a [sic] ass—a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.". 4. call someone names(call someone's name喊名字, 叫名字, call sb by name) to call someone by an abusive or insulting name. to use impolite or unpleasant words to describe someone I was afraid that if I wore glasses to school, the other kids would call me names. It's a good thing he didn't hear me earlier - I was calling him all the names under the sun. (= using a lot of impolite words to describe him). Billy cried when the other kids called him names. John was punished for calling his teacher names. Name calling 骂人, 人身攻击 is abusive or insulting language referring to a person or group, a verbal abuse. This phenomenon is studied by a variety of academic disciplines from anthropology, to child psychology, to politics. It is also studied by rhetoricians, and a variety of other disciplines that study propaganda techniques and their causes and effects. The technique is most frequently employed within political discourse and school systems, in an attempt to negatively impact their opponent. 5. In a legal context, a chilling effect 杀鸡儆猴, 杀一儆百, 杀鸡给猴看, 寒蝉效应, 以儆效尤, 让人不寒而栗的效应 is the inhibition or discouragement of the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction. The right that is most often described as being suppressed by a chilling effect is the US constitutional right to free speech. A chilling effect may be caused by legal actions such as the passing of a law, the decision of a court, or the threat of a lawsuit; any legal action that would cause people to hesitate to exercise a legitimate right (freedom of speech or otherwise) for fear of legal repercussions法律后果. When that fear is brought about by the threat of a libel lawsuit, it is called libel chill. A lawsuit initiated specifically for the purpose of creating a chilling effect may be called a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or more commonly called; a "SLAPP suit." "Chilling" in this context normally implies an undesirable slowing. Outside of the legal context in common usage; any coercion or threat of coercion (or other unpleasantries) can have a chilling effect on a group of people regarding a specific behavior, and often can be statistically measured or be plainly observed. For example the news headline "Flood insurance [price] spikes have chilling effect on some home sales," and the abstract title of a two‐part survey of 160 college students involved in dating relationships: "The chilling effect of aggressive potential on the expression of complaints in intimate relationships." In United States and Canadian law, the term chilling effects refers to the stifling effect that vague or excessively broad laws may have on legitimate speech activity. However, the term is also now commonly used outside of American legal jargon, such as the chilling effects of high prices or of corrupt police, or of "anticipated aggressive repercussions" (in say, personal relationships). A chilling effect is an effect that is chilling, i.e., reduces, suppresses, discourages, delays, or otherwise retards reporting concerns of any kind. An example of the "chilling effect" in Canadian case law can be found in Iorfida v. MacIntyre where the constitutionality of a criminal law prohibiting the publication of literature depicting illicit drug use was challenged. The court found that the law had a "chilling effect" on legitimate forms of expression and could stifle political debate on issues such as the legalization of marijuana. The court noted that it did not adopt采用 the same "chilling effect" analysis used in American law but considered the chilling effect of the law as a part of its own analysis. Recognition that a law may allow for a chilling effect as a vehicle for political libel or vexatious litigation( vex to make someone annoyed, confused, or worried. vexatious [vekˈseɪʃəs] = vexint [ˈveksɪŋ] making you feel annoyed, confused, or worried. Causing or creating vexation; annoying: vexatious delays. Vexatious litigation 纯粹是胡闹的, 目的只为骚扰对方, 激怒对方, 给对方带来麻烦的的诉讼 is legal action which is brought, regardless of its merits, solely to harass or subdue an adversary. It may take the form of a primary frivolous lawsuit or may be the repetitive, burdensome, and unwarranted filing of meritless motions in a matter which is otherwise a meritorious cause of action. Filing vexatious litigation is considered an abuse of the judicial process and may result in sanctions against the offender. A single action, even a frivolous one, is usually not enough to raise a litigant to the level of being declared vexatious. Repeated and severe instances by a single lawyer or firm can result in eventual disbarment. In law, frivolous litigation ( frivolous [ˈfrɪvələs] I. behaving in a silly way in situations where you should be behaving in a serious or sensible way. II. 无理取闹的. 纯粹捣乱的. 无理搅三分的. lacking any real purpose or importance. frivolous complaints. ) is the practice of starting or carrying on lawsuits that, due to their lack of legal merit, have little to no chance of being won. The term does not include cases that may be lost due to other matters not related to legal merit. While colloquially, a person may term a lawsuit to be frivolous if he or she personally finds a claim to be absurd, in legal usage "frivolous litigation" consists of a claim or defense that is presented where the party (or the party's legal counsel) had reason to know that the claim or defense was manifestly insufficient or futile. The fact that a claim is lost does not imply that it was frivolous. Frivolous litigation may be based on absurd legal theories, may involve a superabundance or repetition of motions or additional suits, may be uncivil or harassing to the court, or may claim extreme remedies. A claim or defense may be frivolous because it had no underlying justification in fact, or because it was not presented with an argument for a reasonable extension or reinterpretation of the law. A claim may be deemed frivolous because existing laws unequivocally prohibit such a claim, such as a so-called Good Samaritan law. Good Samaritan laws 好人法律, 好人好事法律 offer legal protection to people who give reasonable assistance to those who are injured, ill, in peril, or otherwise incapacitated. The protection is intended to reduce bystanders' 旁观者, 路过者 hesitation to assist, for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death. An example of such a law in common-law areas of Canada: a good Samaritan doctrine is a legal principle that prevents a rescuer who has voluntarily helped a victim in distress from being successfully sued for wrongdoing. Its purpose is to keep people from being reluctant to help a stranger in need for fear of legal repercussions should they make some mistake in treatment. By contrast, a duty to rescue law requires people to offer assistance, and holds those who fail to do so liable.) provides motivation to change such defamation laws, and therefore prevent censorship and the suppression 压制 of free speech. 5. give someone the shits(got the shits) I. (Australia, colloquial, vulgar) To annoy or frustrate someone to a great degree. Can you stop sending me text messages at two in the morning? You're giving me the shits! Women who are too damn sensitive give me the shits. Every single damn thing that comes out of your mouth is wrong. You can't say a damn thing without getting into an argument. When I questioned if she was OK, she said, "Yeah I'm fine now Miss. This chick has been giving me the shits for ages so I put her head inside a clothes dryer. It's fine now." II. (vulgar) To creep someone out; to scare someone. He saw the driver shut off the power, and stare upwards in horror, and that really gave him the shits […]. Yet Amos knew Varney stirred strange sensations inside most people, something that would grab an ordinary man by the gut and gave him the shits. shit-faced I. 大醉的, 烂醉如泥的. very drunk. Origin: when vomiting into a toilet, one's face is usually near (or in) the toilet. There is often shit in toilets. When they brought in that keg, I knew I was going to get shitfaced. II. Under the influence of mind altering drugs. 6. sidestep 回避 I. [transitive] to avoid something difficult or unpleasant. Politicians are very good at sidestepping the questions they don't like. (avoid: to choose not to do something in order to achieve a better result. get out of: to avoid doing something that you should do or that you said you would do. duck out of: to avoid doing something that you were intending to do or had promised to do. abstain: to deliberately avoid doing something that is enjoyable but that may not be healthy, safe, or morally right. shirk: to avoid doing something difficult, or to avoid accepting responsibility for something. evade: to avoid accepting or dealing with something that you should do. skip: to avoid doing or having something. wriggle out of (doing) something 摆脱: to avoid doing something by making excuses. to avoid doing something that you do not want to do: He promised he'd help me decorate, but now he's trying to wriggle out of it. flinch from (doing) something: to avoid dealing with a difficult responsibility or decision. sweep something under the carpet: to try to avoid dealing with a problem.) II. [intransitive/transitive] to step quickly to the side. in the thick of it also in the thick of something 深陷, 深深卷入, 一脚踏进 completely involved in an activity or a situation At first George didn't want to have anything to do with planning our wedding, but he's in the thick of it now. Although he denies it, the company's treasurer was in the thick of the illegal activities. the thick of things I. (idiomatic) A central or major role in a situation; a position in which one is surroundedby or very involved in complex, changing events. Second base is a pleasurable post for the reason that the man covering it is in the thick of things at all times. During the coup he also kept his distance from the thick of things. Usage notes: Often used in prepositional phrases beginning with in or into. in the swim of things Fig. Actively participating in the flow of events; very involved. involved in or participating in events or happenings. (be ~; get [into]~.) I've been ill, but soon I'll be back in the swim of things. I can't wait to settle down and get into the swim of things. But "he's right there in the center of things, in the swim of art history.". 7. KFC开始卖酒: One of Australia's leading public health campaigners has called on the ILGA to reject the KFC liquor licence application. "It sounds like one of those harebrained 缺大脑的, 没大脑的 schemes that marketing people come up with," said Mike Daube, Professor of Health Policy at Curtin University. "It really is quite absurd to be associating a product like KFC with alcohol," Professor Daube said. Professor Daube said advertising had a strong effect on children and they would associate the KFC brand with alcohol if the liquor licence was granted. "There is very substantial evidence 强有力证据, 明显证据 that kids are influenced by alcohol advertising and that's why there is so much pressure to curb even more the kind of alcohol to which kids are exposed," he said. 8. 偷渡新策略: Italian authorities disembarked 360 cold and hungry migrants Saturday from a ship left adrift by its crew off the country's coast, with some having paid up to $8,000 to traffickers for the perilous ( [ˈperələs] very dangerous. a perilous journey. perilously close to (doing) something at a point at which you nearly do something dangerous or unpleasant. We came perilously close to losing the game. ) journey. It was the latest in a wave of such incidents involving migrants crossing the Mediterranean to flee conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa and attempting to reach Europe by sea. The migrants have been preyed upon by people smugglers人贩子, who have recently resorted to a new tactic of abandoning "ghost ships" full of desperate travellers off European coasts. Women and children were among hundreds of migrants left stranded aboard the Ezadeen, which docked in the Italian port of Corigliano Calabro around 11:00 pm Friday after a delicate operation by the Italian navy to take control of the ageing vessel. Its arrival was one in a series of maritime dramas that Italy has grappled with ( grapple with something to try hard to understand a difficult idea or to solve a difficult problem. The government continued to grapple with the issue of public transport.) in recent days, and which have brought some 2,000 rescued migrants to Italian soil. Italian prefect Gianfranco Tomao told reporters migrants can now pay traffickers between $4,000 and $8,000 for passage to Europe. Passengers aboard the Ezadeen had paid amounts in that range, he said, and the ship was later left to drift in stormy seas off southern Italy without fuel or electricity. Some confusion remained about whether the vessel's crew jumped ship, or as some passengers suspect, simply peeled off masks they'd worn 撕下面具 during the crossing, then melted in among migrant passengers to be rescued as naval ships neared.
关于raw sugar, brown sugar和white sugar: Brown sugar is a sucrose (glucose 葡萄糖. Sucrose蔗糖, commonly named table sugar or sugar, is cane and beet sugar. The molecule is a disaccharide combination of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose with the formula C12H22O11. A white, odorless, crystalline powder with a sweet taste, it is best known for its role in food. About 175 million metric tons of sucrose sugar were produced worldwide in 2013. ) sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses（Molasses 糖蜜 (American vernacular), or black treacle (British, for human consumption; known as molasses otherwise), is a viscous by-product of the refining of sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. The word comes from the Portuguese melaço, ultimately derived from mel, the Portuguese and Latin word for "honey". Molasses varies by amount of sugar and method of extraction, and age of plant. Sweet sorghum syrup may be colloquially called "sorghum molasses" in the American South. 糖蜜是將甘蔗或甜菜製成食糖的加工過程中的副产品, 一般是棕黑色黏稠液体. 浓缩榨汁在分离出白糖后余下的都是糖蜜, 因此含有比白糖丰富的营养物质. 红糖是糖蜜没有分离完全的白糖. 过去红糖是生产白糖的中间产品, 而现在由于工艺的改进, 一般直接生产出白糖, 再添加糖蜜制得红糖.）. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content, (natural brown sugar) or it is produced by the addition of molasses to refined white sugar (commercial brown sugar). Natural brown sugar, raw sugar or whole cane sugar are sugars that retain a small to large amount of the molasses from the mother liquor (the partially evaporated sugar cane juice). Based upon weight, brown cane sugar when fully refined yields up to 70% white sugar, the degree depending on how much molasses remained in the sugar crystals, which in turn is dependent upon whether the brown sugar was centrifuged 离心机的, 离心吹离的 (centrifuge a machine that uses centrifugal force to separate heavier substances from lighter ones by spinning them round in a container.) or not. As there is more molasses in natural brown sugar, it contains minor nutritional value and mineral content. Raw Sugar: When sugar cane arrives from the fields, sugar millers 磨坊主 grind and press it to extract the sweet juices. Crystals that form in the liquid are granules called raw sugar. After going through filtration and hot water washes, the sugar contains 96 percent sucrose and 4 percent of plant materials contained in the mother liquid. Vacuum-drying this product leaves a golden brown color and sweet taste but very little nutritional value, except for calories from the carbohydrate content. The raw sugar can either go to the consumer or to the refinery for further processing. Molasses: After filtering out plant trash and raw sugar crystals, millers slowly evaporate the liquid, resulting in a rich, brown mixture called molasses. Molasses contains 46 percent dissolved sucrose and other sugars; 3 percent protein; small amounts of minerals like calcium, phosphorous, magnesium and sulfur; trace elements such as copper, iron, manganese and zinc; and B-vitamins. Molasses is used for both human and animal consumption. Producers may also mix it with raw sugar to facilitate transport to a refinery, or with white sugar to yield brown sugar. White Sugar: At the refinery, the raw sugar and molasses mixture undergoes further washing with hot water and separation through centrifugation and filtration. The naturally white crystals that remain are 99.9 percent sucrose. This sugar can go to grinding machines that produce different sizes of granules -- everything from crystals to powders -- for use in household and commercial cooking and flavoring. Brown Sugar: Mixing white sugar crystals with various amounts of molasses results in a soft, lumpy product called brown sugar. The amount of molasses added depends on the producer, but you could expect light brown sugar to contain 3.5 percent molasses, while dark brown sugar might contain 6.5 percent molasses. Brown sugar imparts the taste of molasses to recipes and adds moisture to make a softer texture. Considerations: Raw sugar differs very little from white sugar(bleached), except that the crystals of raw sugar are larger and have more color. In spite of trace amounts of minerals in molasses, brown sugar contains only slightly more nutritive value than raw sugar because the amounts added back are so small. The calories of raw sugar and brown sugar are the same. Both raw sugar and brown sugar appeal to people and animals because of the sweet taste and burst of caloric energy.
晦涩难懂的2014语言: The foundation publishes the list to highlight the importance of clear and ethical public language(ethical I. involving the principles used for deciding what is right and what is wrong. ethical issues/standards/objections. II. morally right. ethical foreign policy/investment/behaviour. Is it really ethical to keep animals in zoos?). Winners are decided by staff votes, chosen from a shortlist of doublespeak (Doublespeak 模糊其词, 巧令辞色, 巧言令色 is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs, "servicing the target" for bombing), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable. It may also refer to intentional ambiguity in language or to actual inversions of meaning (for example, naming a state of war "peace"). In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth. Doublespeak is most closely associated with political language.), buzzwords 口号似的语言 ( 空洞的口号. (win-win, Survival strategy, Sustainability, Synergy( 一加一大于二. the extra energy or effectiveness that people or businesses create when they combine their efforts. Profitability is expected to benefit from synergies between the two operations.), Touch base, Milestone, Moving forward) A buzzword is a word or phrase used to impress, or one that is fashionable. Buzzwords often originate in jargon or are neologisms. a word or phrase, often an item of jargon, that is fashionable at a particular time or in a particular context. a word that has become very popular, especially a word relating to a particular activity or subject. a speech full of buzzwords and empty promises. The buzzword of the moment is 'accountability'.) and "fancy pants" language(fancy-pants 故弄玄虚的, 装酷的 (American & Australian informal) trying to seem too attractive or too clever in a way that is false (always before noun). We liked the restaurant's food but not the fancy-pants decor. I don't know what she sees in that fancy-pants college professor of hers. 解释: As I listened to a coaching session recently, an insight suddenly hit me. I realized that in the many hours of coaching I've done and listened to for observation purposes, I have never heard anyone speak in what I call "fancy pants" language. Fancy pants means convoluted 晦涩难懂的, 艰深的, long-winded, and jargon- and abstraction-laden language. It is the opposite of plain language, where the goal is to get to the meaning of what is being said as quickly and accurately as possible. convoluted [ˈkɒnvəˌlu:tɪd] I. very complicated, or more complicated than necessary. the novel's convoluted storyline. II. mainly literary a convoluted shape or surface has many twists and curves. long-winded 滔滔不绝的, 不歇一口气的 I. Wearisomely verbose: a long-winded speaker. II. Able to maintain breathing power during exertion: a long-winded swimmer. ). 微软关于裁员的解释: Microsoft emailed its employees to explain that the company's "device strategy must reflect Microsoft's strategy and must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope. Therefore, we plan to make some changes". Finally, in the eleventh paragraph, the email got to the point: 12,500 Microsoft employees were going to lose their jobs. Residents of Morwell, Victoria, were left breathing foul-smelling smoke for over two weeks due to a month-long fire, which was described as an "open cut event" in a nearby mine. "Inversion (I. formal 倒置的, 颠倒的. a change that makes something the opposite of what it was before, or turns it upside down. II. a weather condition in which the air near the ground is colder than the air above it. ) condition" led to a "reversion 回归, 倒退(aversion厌烦)" ( I. formal an act of returning to an earlier state. reversion to: These changes are a reversion to an earlier weather pattern. II. legal the process by which a place returns to a previous owner or government. the reversion of Hong Kong to China香港回归. ) in air quality, while firefighters struggled to bring the fire "to its totality"(in its totality As a whole: a deeper exploration of life in its totality.). Collabition: An awkward mangling of the words collaboration (同侪的合作) and competition - not to be confused with its close cousin, "Co-opetition"( Coopetition or Co-opetition 有竞争也有合作 (sometimes spelled "coopertition" or "co-opertition") is a neologism coined to describe cooperative competition. Coopetition is a portmanteau of cooperation and competition. Coopetition occurs when companies interact with partial congruence of interests. They cooperate with each other to reach a higher value creation if compared to the value created without interaction and struggle to achieve competitive advantage. Often coopetition takes place when companies that are in the same market work together in the exploration of knowledge and research of new products, at the same time that they compete for market-share of their products and in the exploitation of the knowledge created. ) which describes businesses working with their competitors, to everyone's advantage. Neither case is supposed to be confused with "collusion". Selfies(selfie-stick, selfie-pole自拍神器) are so 2013. This year it's all about the "couplie" (a self-portrait with your significant other). Normcore: Normcore is a fashion term that describes wearing unpretentious穿着自然, 不做作, plain, average-looking clothing. Like normal clothing, but more fashionable. Apparently normcore seeks the freedom that comes with non-exclusivity. It finds liberation in being nothing special, and realises that adaptability leads to belonging.
