用法学习: 1. a figment of your imagination something imagined or created by your mind: The dinosaurs he said he saw were figments of his imagination. rebuttal 反驳, 驳斥 I. a statement showing or saying that something is not true. She issued a point-by-point rebuttal 逐条驳斥, 逐点反驳, 一一驳斥 of the company's accusations. II. a refusal to accept that something is true. If you make a rebuttal of a charge or accusation that has been made against you, you make a statement which gives reasons why the accusation is untrue. He is conducting a point-by-point rebuttal of charges from former colleagues. [+ of/to] Rebuttals to the piece appeared immediately and forcefully. rebut If you rebut a charge or criticism that is made against you, you give reasons why it is untrue or unacceptable. [formal] He spent most of his speech rebutting criticisms of his foreign policy. 2. narrative [nærətɪv] I. A narrative is a story or an account of a series of events. a story, or an account of something that has happened. At this point in her narrative 叙述, Lou suddenly paused. a fast-moving first-person narrative. Sloan began his narrative with the day of the murder. II. Narrative is the description of a series of events, usually in a novel. Neither author was very strong on narrative 叙事. ...Nye's simple narrative style 叙事风格. 约会: The couple ended up going dutch, meaning each paid for their own meal. This was despite the old dating ideal that(I. An ideal is a principle, idea, or standard that seems very good and worth trying to achieve. The party has drifted too far from its socialist ideals 理想. I tried to live up to my ideal of myself. II. Your ideal of something is the person or thing that seems to you to be the best possible example of it. ...the Japanese ideal of beauty. [+ of] Throughout his career she remained his feminine ideal. III. 理想的人选. adj. The ideal person or thing for a particular task or purpose is the best possible person or thing for it. She decided that I was the ideal person to take over the job. I really love the area and see it as an ideal place to start my managerial career. The conditions were ideal for racing. IV. adj. An ideal society or world is the best possible one that you can imagine. We do not live in an ideal world. In an ideal world, there would be no such thing as rubbish. Their ideal society collapsed around them into the Terror and then into the Counterrevolution.) a man should always pay and also went against the more modern approach of whoever does the asking out pays - in this case, the woman. 3. grotesque [ɡroʊˈtesk] n. 奇异风格. 怪异的东西. A grotesque is a person who is very ugly in a strange or unnatural way, especially one in a novel or painting. Grass's novels are peopled with outlandish characters: grotesques, clowns, scarecrows, dwarfs. adj. I. 奇形怪状的, 奇怪的, 可笑的. 荒诞的. 荒谬的. You say that something is grotesque when it is so unnatural, unpleasant, and exaggerated that it upsets or shocks you. ...the grotesque disparities between the wealthy few and nearly everyone else. ...a country where grotesque abuses are taking place. He called it the most grotesquely tragic experience that he's ever had. II. If someone or something is grotesque, they are very ugly. They tried to avoid looking at his grotesque face and his crippled body. ...grotesquely deformed beggars. Political theatre: A term denoting theatre used for political purposes, usually as part of a campaign or movement, sometimes as part of the work of a political party. At its loosest, it can have a wide application ranging from community theatre to consciousness-raising by groups with a specific identity such as women's, black or gay companies. Its usage is often imprecise, overlapping with other terms like alternative, guerilla (Guerrilla [ɡəˈrɪlə] (gorilla [ɡəˈrɪlə] 大猩猩) 游击队, 游击战 theatre ( Guerrilla [ɡəˈrɪlə] I. a member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting, typically against larger regular forces. "this town fell to the guerrillas". II. referring to actions or activities performed in an impromptu way, often without authorization. "guerrilla gigs". III. a member of a military group that is not official and usually wants to change a political situation. Their main method is to make unexpected attacks in small groups. a. [only before noun] using unexpected methods of attack to surprise the enemy. guerrilla groups/fighters/leaders. guerrilla warfare: The enemy avoided direct confrontation and concentrated on guerrilla warfare. ), generally rendered "guerrilla theater" in the US, is a form of guerrilla communication originated in 1965 by the San Francisco Mime Troupe, who, in spirit of the Che Guevara writings from which the term guerrilla is taken, engaged in performances in public places committed to "revolutionary sociopolitical change." The group performances, aimed against the Vietnam war and capitalism, sometimes contained nudity, profanity and taboo subjects that were shocking to some members of the audiences of the time. Guerrilla (Spanish for "little war"), as applied to theatrical events, describes the act of spontaneous, surprise performances in unlikely public spaces to an unsuspecting audience. Typically these performances intend to draw attention to a political/social issue through satire, protest, and carnivalesque techniques. Many of these performances were a direct result of the radical social movements of the late 1960s through mid-1970s. Guerrilla Theater, also referred to as guerrilla performance, has been sometimes related to the agitprop theater of the 1930s, but it is differentiated from agitprop by the inclusion of Dada performance tactics.) or radical theatre. Each country has its own tradition of political theatre. 4. pedantic [pɪˈdantɪk] 过于吹毛求疵的 excessively concerned with minor details or rules; overscrupulous. "his analyses are careful and even painstaking, but never pedantic". Hang nails 指甲刺 although benign, tend to be a nagging and annoying ongoing problem for a lot of people. Hang nails are also a cause of a lot of pain. A hang nail is usually torn skin around the fingernail or toenail. Diplopia 复视, 看重影, commonly known as double vision (Astigmatism)(If you start seeing double images (ghost image) when your eyes normally work well together, you should take it seriously. Temporary episodes of double vision can happen for many reasons, including drinking too much alcohol or being overly tired. This type of short-term double vision is usually not cause for worry. But if the diplopia is long-lasting or keeps coming back, reasons for it can include many possibilities. Double vision occurs when a person sees a double image where there should only be one. The two images can be side by side, on top of one another, or both. The condition can affect balance, movement, and reading ability. If double vision affects just one eye, it is monocular. If it affects both eyes, it is binocular. Treatments depend on the cause and type, but they include eye exercises, specially designed glasses, and surgery. The most common symptom of astigmatism is blurred or double vision. If you are only slightly affected, you may not notice anything wrong. More significant astigmatism may cause noticeable distortions of your vision. It is particularly important to remember that children with vision problems may not realize their vision is blurred. After all, they may never have seen the world in focus. That's why it's a good idea for children to have regular vision checks. Here are some symptoms of astigmatism: Blurring of small print, difficulty reading; Double vision; Inability to see both near and distant without squinting 眯眼. ), is the simultaneous perception of two images of a single object that may be displaced horizontally, vertically, diagonally (i.e., both vertically and horizontally), or rotationally in relation to each other. It is usually the result of impaired function of the extraocular muscles (EOMs), where both eyes are still functional but they cannot turn to target the desired object. Problems with EOMs may be due to mechanical problems, disorders of the neuromuscular junction, disorders of the cranial nerves (III, IV, and VI) that stimulate the muscles, and occasionally disorders involving the supranuclear oculomotor pathways or ingestion of toxins. Diplopia can be one of the first signs of a systemic disease, particularly to a muscular or neurological process, and it may disrupt a person's balance, movement, and/or reading abilities. 5. fiscal 财政 vs financial 财经: The domains are different (though overlapping to some extent), as these two definitions show (bolding mine): Fiscal Policy: In economics and political science, fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection (mainly taxes) and expenditure (spending) to influence the economy. According to Keynesian economics, when the government changes the levels of taxation and government spending, it influences aggregate demand and the level of economic activity. Fiscal policy can be used to stabilize the economy over the course of the business cycle. Financial Policy: Criteria describing a corporation's choices regarding its debt/equity mix, currencies of denomination, maturity structure, method of financing investment projects, and hedging decisions with a goal of maximizing the value of the firm to some set of stockholders. There is some overlap in meaning between the terms: financial, meaning (obviously) 'involving financial matters', is a subset of fiscal, which has the additional meaning of 'relating to government revenue and taxes'. Financial policy is related to money and only money. Lending/interest rates are the bellwether of financial policy - it is just pure math. Fiscal policy is more about how (much) a Government wants to spend and earn - this is not pure math as financial policy and is quite discretionary. Fiscal policy is top-level directive/decision and includes financial policy. Fiscal austerity [ɔˈsterəti] 财政紧缩 is a term in common use in the media at the moment. It refers to decisions by a government to reduce the amount of government borrowing (i.e. cut the size of a fiscal deficit 财政赤字) over a period of years. 6. 曼谷旅游: I took their advice, but an even bigger endorsement for the property came immediately after my arrival. I entered the lobby (vibrantly decorated with a towering cone of purple orchids, a distinctly Thai take on a Christmas tree) to find a battalion of security guards, the hotel's top brass [brɑːs] 高层, 大老板们(get down to brass tacks (idiomatic, chiefly US) Deal with the important details. to start talking about the most important or basic facts of a situation. If you get down to brass tacks, you discuss the basic, most important facts of a situation. Let's take a quick look round and then we can get down to brass tacks. Let's get down to brass tacks. Who's paying for all this? Etymology: Earliest attestation in 1863 US, specifically Texas. One theory is that it comes from the brass tacks in the counter of a hardware store or draper’s shop used to measure cloth in precise units (rather than holding one end to the nose and stretching out the arm to approximately one yard). Another possibility is the 19th-century American practice of using brass tacks to spell out the initials of the deceased on the top of their coffin. Alternatively, it may come from Cockney rhyming slang to mean "getting down to the facts." ) and a quartet all in wait as a welcoming committee. But not for me, of course. Right behind me was the only daughter of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn, Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana. She and her retinue were due to have dinner in the hotel’s two-Michelin-star French restaurant Le Normandie.
明星时尚: We have Kim Kardashian to thank for contouring and bodycon dresses(A bodycon dress is a tight figure-hugging dress, often made from stretchy 有弹力的, 有弹性的 material. The name derives from "body conscious".), and Kylie Jenner for lip kits and mini Hermès Birkins. But it may be Kourtney Kardashian who reigns supreme as the most stylish Kardashian-Jenner sibling. On the weekend, Kourtney helped the chart-topping singer celebrate his milestone birthday in an unexpected outfit choice: a half-tuxedo jacket. The slick look 干练的, 干净利索的, which came courtesy of Jean Paul Gaultier, sees half a chic black blazer sit on the wearer with the other half missing entirely. With the help of a matching bra wrapped around her, the mother-of-three nailed the look and made us question whether you really need both halves of a garment to feel complete. 男装时尚: Menswear often, sadly, plays second fiddle 居次席 to the endless array of variety clothing available for women. But the oversized parkas, theatrical sweaters, leather pants, grungy ( [ˈɡrʌndʒi] dirty and sometimes messy or smelling bad. dirty, messy, disreputable, etc.; unpleasant in any way. a grungy pair of jeans. a grungy little apartment. ) caps and gold sweatshirts spotted at this week's Milan Menswear Fashion Week is set to change that. In fact, some of the outfits debuted on the runways wouldn't look out of place in Derek Zoolander's wardrobe (headbands anyone?). From Fendi to Emporio Armani and the cutting edge designs of Dan and Dean Caten's streetwear label, Dsquared², weve rounded up 12 must-see looks from this year’s Milan Menswear Fashion Week.
Woman's JetBlue airport meltdown shocks passengers: A woman shocked stranded passengers at a US airport over the weekend after going nuclear 发疯 when she learned her flight had been cancelled. The female traveller — who was intoxicated at the time, according to a statement from the airline — unleashed an obscenity-riddled 脏话连篇的 tirade [taɪˈreɪd; tɪˈreid; US: 'taɪreɪd] on a JetBlue worker in Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on January 6, 2019. The tantrum, which was recorded and uploaded to the internet, quickly went viral. "Goddammit, who does that to a woman like me, who?" the woman can be heard shrieking 尖叫 to a male staff member, while aggressively climbing the gate counter. According to one witness, the passenger also accused the JetBlue agent of being a "rapist" and threatened him with a gun. "I have a f---ing gun on me because I'm hopeless!" she appears to scream in the clip, causing spectators 旁观者 nearby to become alarmed. "She said she had a gun on her," a voice whispers in the background. The woman then picks up her bag and walks off. Another video uploaded to Instagram indicates the woman may have been arrested or detained shortly after going berserk at airline workers, showing her hunched over on the ground and surrounded by authorities. Passenger Dre London first shared the footage online, explaining the trigger for the woman's epic meltdown. The woman's obscene overreaction has garnered thousands of comments and likes on Reddit and Instagram in just one day.
Question of Protocol: US Clashes With EU Over Diplomatic Status of Delegation: The United States downgraded 降级 the diplomatic status of the European Union's delegation in Washington last year without formally announcing the change or telling Brussels, according to EU officials. They say it only came to light when the bloc's envoy in the U.S. capital, Irish diplomat David O'Sullivan, discovered he wasn't being invited to certain events and was invited to the funeral of former U.S. President Herbert Walker Bush after national ambassadors, despite his seniority 资深. Diplomacy is saturated with symbolism and double meanings - and the downgrade, which now has been temporarily reversed 临时反转 - has angered EU officials, who fear the move was meant as a snub 轻蔑, 鄙视. They've requested an explanation for the downgrade, according to EU spokesperson Maja Kocijancic. Politicians and analysts on both sides of the Atlantic are struggling, though, to understand the motives for the demotion, debating whether the move was meant as a rebuff ( [rɪˈbʌf] to refuse to talk to someone or do what they suggest. If you rebuff someone or rebuff a suggestion that they make, you refuse to do what they suggest. His proposals have already been rebuffed by the Prime Minister. n. a blunt refusal or rejection; snub. an abrupt, blunt refusal of offered advice, help, etc. The results of the poll dealt a humiliating rebuff to Mr Jones. [+ to] ) by an administration that has clashed with Brussels over trade and defense issues or whether it was the result of a bureaucratic mix-up. "The demotion of the EU representative was reversed following bilateral talks in December," an EU official told reporters Tuesday in Brussels. President Donald Trump has been a vocal supporter of Britain's exit from the EU - describing himself on the campaign trail as Mr. Brexit and frequently lambasting the bloc for running trade surpluses with America. He has embraced anti-EU figures, including Nigel Farage, a leading Brexiter and onetime leader of the UK Independence party, whom he met after his election win ahead of meeting any EU leaders or Britain's prime minister. The president tweeted that he thought Farage should be made Britain's ambassador to the U.S. Because of the partial 部分的 government shutdown in Washington, the State Department is not responding to media requests about the protocol change. Previously, the U.S. treated the EU delegation and its ambassador as representatives of a country would be, say European officials. But the change, which is thought to have been made last October or November, downgraded the diplomatic status of the EU delegation to that of representing an international organization, a much lower pegging with potential impact regarding access to the administration. "We understand that there was a recent change in the way the diplomatic precedence list is implemented by the United States' Protocol," said Kocijancic in a statement. "We are discussing with the relevant services in the administration possible implications for the EU delegation in Washington. We were not notified of any change. We expect the diplomatic practice 外交惯例 established some years ago to be observed 遵守." The status change was first reported by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. "We don't exactly know when they did it, because they conveniently forgot to notify us," an EU official told the broadcaster. "This is clearly not simply a protocol issue, but this is something that has a very obvious political motive," he said. Other EU diplomats in the U.S. capital contacted by VOA expressed the same view. A senior European diplomat maintained the relegation also may have been motivated by a wish to reverse a decision taken by the previous Obama administration, which upgraded the status of the delegation of the 28-nation bloc in 2016. "If this wasn't meant as a snub then the timing is odd," he said. "Normally protocol tweaks are made in the first few months of a new administration, not two years in," he said. "That aside, even if they didn't intend it as a rebuff, they must have realized that's how it would be interpreted. It is in line with what we see as an anti-EU stance by the Trump administration, which also dislikes multilateral organizations." In a speech in Brussels in December, as the diplomatic downgrade was being discussed between U.S. and EU officials, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Trump's "America First" policy was reshaping the post-Second World War system by recognizing the importance of sovereign states over multilateral institutions. He criticized "bureaucrats" for believing multilateralism is "an end in itself," and cast doubt on the EU's commitment to its citizens. That drew a sharp rebuke from the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm. Several high-profile European politicians reacted to the news of the downgrade Tuesday with frustration. "Soap opera politics: US downgrades EU mission in DC in a petty Trump move(I. You can use petty to describe things such as problems, rules, or arguments which you think are unimportant or relate to unimportant things. [disapproval] He was miserable all the time and rows would start over petty 小事, 不足为道的 things. ...endless rules and petty regulations. The meeting degenerated into petty squabbling. II. If you describe someone's behaviour as petty, you mean that they care too much about small, unimportant things and perhaps that they are unnecessarily unkind. [disapproval] He was petty-minded 爱抠细节, 吹毛求疵的 and obsessed with detail. I think that attitude is a bit petty. Never had she met such spite and pettiness. III. Petty is used of people or actions that are less important, serious, or great than others. Wilson was not a man who dealt with petty officials. ...petty crime 小偷小摸, such as handbag-snatching and minor break-ins.)," tweeted Carl Bildt of the European Council on Foreign Relatios and a former Swedish prime minister. Euro-skeptics cheered. "That should take the EU superstate down a peg or two!" tweeted the pro-Brexit Leave campaign. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom Tuesday heads to Washington for a round of trade talks with U.S. counterpart Robert Lighthizer. Trade tensions between Brussels and Washington have flared since Trump imposed tariffs on European aluminum and steel imports. The U.S. president has threatened to impose tariffs on the European cars, too.
