用法学习: 1. resemble [rɪˈzemb(ə)l] never passive to be similar to someone or something, especially in appearance. The two species resemble each other. The fish had white, firm flesh that resembled chicken. She so resembles her mother. closely/faintly/strongly/vaguely resemble: Soldiers are trained under conditions that closely resemble real combat. The animals make a strange sound, vaguely resembling the bark of a dog. Michelle Obama on overturn of Roe Vs Wade: "I know this is not the future you chose for your generation — but if you give up now, you will inherit a country that does not resemble you or any of the values you believe in," she said. "This moment is difficult, but our story does not end here. It may not feel like we are able to do much right now, but we can. And we must." travesty [ˈtrævəsti] a situation, action, or event that shocks you because it is very different from what it should be or because it seems very unfair. Jensen called the verdict a travesty of justice. If you describe something as a travesty of another thing 恶劣典型, you mean that it is a very bad representation of that other thing. Her research suggests that Smith's reputation today is a travesty of what he really stood for. If he couldn't prepare his case properly, the trial would be a travesty. Hours after the Alabama passed the most restrictive abortion law in the country, Lady Gaga labeled it a "travesty" on Twitter. In a lenghty note, she wrote: "It is an outrage to ban abortion in Alabama, period, and all the more heinous that it excludes those who have been raped or are experiencing incest, non-consensual or not. So there's a higher penalty for doctors who perform these operations than for most rapists? This is a travesty, and I pray for all these women and young girls who suffer at the hands of this system." 2. Brady cited his family's support as a main reason for his short-lived retirement: "Things have always taken a back seat to 靠后, 靠边站, 让位于 football – that's just how it has gone for me. It's challenging, and I've just got to work at those things. It is part of what is challenging about things that happen in my life – just different decisions are made. I have a great life and I have zero complaints about it. I just try to do the best I can do." onerous [ˈəʊn(ə)rəs ˈɒn(ə)rəs] adj. I. (of a task or responsibility) involving a great deal of effort, trouble, or difficulty. something that is onerous is something that you dislike or worry about because it is very difficult to deal with. If you describe a task as onerous, you dislike having to do it because you find it difficult or unpleasant. ...parents who have had the onerous task of bringing up a very difficult child. an onerous 让人忧心忡忡的, 让人焦虑的 responsibility/job. "he found his duties increasingly onerous". Packard applied
to the Victorian Court of Appeal to have her sentence reduced because
she said prison had become more onerous since her transition to woman. II. involving heavy obligations. "an onerous lease". 3. postscript I. 附注. 附言. A postscript is something written at the end of a letter after you have signed your name. You usually write ' PS' in front of it. A brief, hand-written postscript lay beneath his signature. II. A postscript is an addition to a finished story, account, or statement, which gives further information. information added to the end of a story, article, or report As a postscript to this chapter on sleep, teams of researchers are testing a melatonin pill. Let me add a postscript to this section on diet. Nick Kyrgios has labelled Stefanos Tsitsipas "soft" after the Greek player accused the Australian of being a bully with an "evil side", in a bitter postscript to the pair's explosive third-round Wimbledon clash. under siege 被群起而攻之, 被围攻 (of a place) undergoing a siege. If someone or something is under siege, they are being severely criticized or put under a great deal of pressure. being criticized or attacked by a lot of different people at the same time. The industry is currently under siege from the press. The guy'll think he's under siege. Radio One is under siege from all sides. "the fort had been under siege by guerrillas since June".
TBBT: 1. Page: Right. Now, how would you characterize your relationship 关系怎么样 with Mr. Wolowitz? Leonard: Good. It's a good relationship. Of course, most of my relationships are good. Probably because I exude 散发 confidence. People are drawn to that, you know? Confidence, not exuding. Page: Do you know of any groups Mr. Wolowitz is a member of? Leonard: You are beautiful, you know that? You pop, sparkle and buzz electric. I'm going to pick you up at eight, show you a night you will never forget. Page: Sounds great. Leonard: Really? Page: Yeah. Can my six-foot-two Navy SEAL husband come with us? Leonard: Is that, oh, my, I didn't see the ring with my glasses off, so, look at that, I'm starting to exude. 2. Page: Would you mind if we talked about Mr. Wolowitz now? Sheldon: A little, but go on. Page: Thank you. Would you characterize him as responsible? Sheldon: I'm going to answer that with a visual aid. This is my nine-disc complete Lord of the Rings trilogy blu-ray set. Mr. Wolowitz borrowed it, damaged plastic retention hub number three, and then returned it to me, hoping I wouldn't notice. Would you characterize that as responsible? Page: That's really not the sort of thing we're interested in. 3. Sheldon: Did I say Mars Rover? Page: You did. Sheldon: That was actually a poorly chosen example, as it had nothing to do with me. Page: Yes, well, let's talk about it anyway. Sheldon: I don't want to. Not that my disinclination ( [ˌdɪsɪnklɪˈneɪʃ(ə)n] 不想, 不乐意, 不愿意. the feeling of being unwilling to do something. A disinclination to do something is a feeling that you do not want to do it. They are showing a marked disinclination to pursue these opportunities. ) to discuss the topic should be interpreted as evidence of Howard Wolowitz's culpability in the destruction of government property worth millions of dollars. Page: Thank you, Dr. Cooper. I think I have all I need. Sheldon: Oh, good. I was afraid you were going to fixate on ( (tr; usually passive) informal to obsess or preoccupy. to focus obsessively Try not to fixate on your differences. fixated 执著于, 抓住不放, 穷追猛打 If you accuse someone of being fixated on a particular thing, you mean that they think about it to an extreme and excessive degree. so interested in someone or something that you do not pay attention to anything else fixated on: He seems fixated on losing weight. But by then the administration wasn't paying attention, for top officials were fixated on Kuwait. Fixated is also a combining form. ...a pop-fixated music journalist. ) that Mars Rover incident. Leonard: To tell you the truth, I thought if anyone was going to screw things up for Howard, it'd be Sheldon. Sheldon: Well, your expectations have been subverted 颠覆, 推翻 ( subvert I. To subvert something means to destroy its power and influence. to attack or harm a government or established system of law, politics, etc. ...an alleged plot to subvert the state. ...a last attempt to subvert culture from within. II. to make someone less loyal or less moral. III. To pervert, as the mind, and turn it from the truth; to corrupt; to confound. A dictator stays in power only as long as he manages to subvert the will of his people. ). Aha. 4. Theatre staff: Guys, I am sorry. We are full up(满座, 满席, 客满. 没位了.). Sheldon: No! Leonard: We really want to see this. Is there anything you can do? Theatre staff: Sorry. Fire regulations 消防要求. Should've gotten here earlier. Sheldon: This is nothing but a blatant abuse of power by a petty functionary. Explain to me why Wil Wheaton and his lackeys get in and we don't. Theatre staff: 'Cause I'm the petty functionary with the clipboard, bitch. full up I. Something that is full up has no space left for any more people or things. Unable to accommodate any more (inhabitants or contents); full. Unfortunately, we're full up here at the moment—no vacancy. Don't worry, I made sure that the dog's water bowl was full up before we left. The prisons are all full up. II. If you are full up you have eaten or drunk so much that you do not want to eat or drink anything else. not wanting to eat any more because you have eaten a lot I ate till I was full up. I can't get any more gas in the tank. It's full up. 'Would you like some dessert?' 'No thanks, I'm full.' on a full stomach (=right after you have eaten a lot): You should never exercise on a full stomach. full to overflowing/bursting (=completely full) 满到溢出, 满到甭坏: Our small house was already full to overflowing. full to capacity (=with every seat taken): The stadium is expected to be full to capacity for the game. III. complete She is expected to make a full recovery. a soldier dressed in full uniform. full details/instructions. I spent three full days 一整天 in Paris. to your full potential (=as well as you can): He is not yet playing to his full potential. IV. if part of someone's body is full, it is large, wide, or has a round shape, especially in a way that is attractive. full lips. full on the mouth/chin etc directly on your mouth/chin etc, especially with a lot of force. She kissed him full on the lips. a full/fuller figure a polite way of talking about the body of a large woman.
Don't be fooled by Boris Johnson's backing of Ukraine: The country that has stood up to Putin's invasion is now feeding its young 年轻人 into a Russian meat grinder that's slowly chewing its way into territory in the east. The British Prime Minister has made two pilgrimages to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, where he's promised arms, money, and unwavering diplomatic support for President Volodomyr Zelensky. "The price of backing down, the price of allowing Putin to succeed, to hack off huge parts of Ukraine, to continue with his program of conquest, that price will be far, far higher. Everybody here understands that," Johnson said in an interview on the sidelines of the G7 summit. Ukrainians, he said, are facing real pressures, they're having to source 寻求, 寻找 energy from elsewhere, but they're doing it and making the effort and making the sacrifice. That's because they see that the "price for the freedom is worth paying," he added. Johnson has long sought to channel 模仿, 效仿, 上身 Second World War-era British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. But he's convincing very few, no matter how welcome he's made in Kyiv, that he understands that many of the freedoms Ukrainians seek lie within the EU. In 2016, Johnson galvanized ( galvanize [ˈɡælvəˌnaɪz] to shock or affect someone enough to produce a strong and immediate reaction. To galvanize someone means to cause them to take action, for example by making them feel very excited, afraid, or angry. The aid appeal has galvanised the German business community. They have been galvanised into collective action–militarily, politically and economically. galvanize someone into (doing) something: The results of the study galvanized residents into action. 镀锌的 Galvanized metal, especially iron and steel, has been covered with zinc in order to protect it from rust and other damage. ...corrosion-resistant galvanized steel. ...75mm galvanised nails. ) support for leaving the EU with a mendacious ( mendacious [menˈdeɪʃəs] 谎话连篇的 A mendacious person is someone who tells lies. A mendacious statement is one that is a lie. a. not telling the truth. b. used about deliberately false statements, information, etc. mendacity [menˈdæsəti] 谎言 Mendacity is lying, rather than telling the truth. ...an astonishing display of cowardice and mendacity. a lie. Contradictions and even blatant mendacities go unchallenged. fib [fɪb] 撒谎 to tell a lie about something that is not important. If someone is fibbing, they are telling lies. He laughs loudly when I accuse him of fibbing. A fib is a small, unimportant lie. She told innocent fibs like anyone else. ) campaign that pledged, erroneously, that £350 billion ($425 billion) of money sent to Europe would come back into the Bank of England. Johnson promised "sunlit 阳光灿烂的, 阳光照耀的 uplands" for the green and pleasant land. But today the sceptered isle is more septic island. The freedom to work anywhere in the bloc -- one now lost to Britons. The freedom of access to a market of half a billion people, now also lost to Britons. For years Johnson, the disheveled political magus ( magus 骗子 [ˈmeɪɡəs] I. a Zoroastrian priest. II. (derogatory) an astrologer, sorcerer, or magician of ancient times. A magician; a conjurer or sorcerer, especially one who is a charlatan or trickster. ), was the golden boy of Britain's Conservative Party. A favorite of comedy shows; the faux ( I. 模仿的. 假的. 人工的. artificial. false, counterfeit or imitation, esp when used in compounds, for example faux-leather. a faux marble bathroom. faux fur. II. 装出来的. 装模作样的. 装样子的. invented and not genuine. faux grievances. His faux outrage means nothing because he is preventing us from keeping the promises we made at the last election. faux-sentient 没有知觉的, 装有知觉的 seemingly able to feel, see, hear, smell or taste but not actually able to do these things; applied to robots. And like any faux-sentient creature, he gets grumpy when he’s poked or turned on his back. ) bumbling ( If you describe a person or their behaviour as bumbling, you mean that they behave in a confused, disorganized way, making mistakes and usually not achieving anything. behaving in a way that is confused and not properly organized a bumbling attempt to start the race. ...a clumsy, bumbling, inarticulate figure. inarticulate [ˌɪnɑː(r)ˈtɪkjʊlət] I. 说不清, 道不明的. 不会说话的. 说不清楚话的, 说话说不清楚的. 说不明白的. not able to express clearly what you want to say. If someone is inarticulate, they are unable to express themselves easily or well in speech. Inarticulate and rather shy, he had always dreaded speaking in public. Kempton made an inarticulate noise at the back of his throat as if he were about to choke. Unfortunately, in interviews he comes across as being rather inarticulate. II. not spoken or pronounced clearly. an inarticulate reply. bumble I. to speak in a confused way that is difficult to understand. II. to move somewhere without a clear purpose in a way that is not smooth or graceful. bumbles around = bumbles about 跌跌撞撞的, 糊里糊涂的 When someone bumbles around or bumbles about, they behave in a confused, disorganized way, making mistakes and usually not achieving anything. Most of us are novices on the computer–just bumbling about on them. ) of Johnson delivered Brexit and a landslide general election win. According to his sister, Rachel, a young Johnson said he wanted to be "world king." As an adult he's had to settle his ambitions at being Britain's head of government. And he stopped at very little to achieve that aim 达成目标, 达到目的. But in June Johnson's political crown slipped over face when his Conservative party was wiped out in two by-elections. These domestic travails ( travail [trəˈveɪl] a very difficult situation, or a situation in which you must work very hard. You can refer to unpleasant hard work or difficult problems as travail. He did whatever he could to ease their travail 困难, 困境. The team, despite their recent travails, are still in the game. vocabulary: If you've had to bust your behind, burn the midnight oil, and shed blood, sweat, and tears to get where you are today, you could say you've endured significant travail 重重磨难. In other words, back-breakingly hard mental exertion or physical labor. Travail comes to us from a sinister Latin word: trepalium, meaning "instrument of torture." The closest English word is probably toil, though travail means you're not just exerting monumental effort but suffering as you do so. If your life has been hard-knock enough to be the stuff of old blues songs or Shakespearean tragedies, you've had your share of travails. In French, incidentally, travail simply means "work." The Spanish trabajo, "work," is closely related. ) may explain his passionate interest in Ukraine. But he's studiously ( studiously [ˈstudiəsli] 刻意的. in a very deliberate way. If you do something studiously, you do it carefully and deliberately. When I looked at Clive, he studiously avoided my eyes. My attempts to be friendly were studiously ignored. studious I. Someone who is studious spends a lot of time reading and studying books. tending to study and read a lot. a quiet studious young man. I was a very quiet, studious little girl. II. giving a lot of attention and care to what you are doing or learning. ) avoided any mention of the essence of its fight with Russia which is, deep down, Ukraine's desire to join the European Union. Meanwhile Britain is struggling with the near implosion of an airline industry facing cancellations of international flights and luggage mountains at Heathrow Airport. The legal system is in disarray as barristers go on strike over claims that their net earnings are below the UK's minimum wage. Railway workers have staged walk outs and threatened more. Teachers too are on the verge of taking action as inflation surges ahead of wage increases. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says the UK economy will grow at 3.6% this year and not at all next year. Only Russia will do worse, the 38-country organization says in its latest report. It's shrinking 萎缩, 收缩 at 4.1%. But it has the expenses of invading Ukraine and the consequences of punitive international sanctions to blame. Britain's economic malaise 疲软, 疲态(malaise [məˈleɪz] I. a general feeling of being worried, unhappy, or not satisfied. Malaise is a state in which people feel dissatisfied or unhappy but feel unable to change, usually because they do not know what is wrong. He complained of depression, headaches and malaise. a. a feeling that you are slightly sick, although you cannot say what exactly is wrong. II. a situation in which a society or organization is not operating effectively. Malaise is a state in which there is something wrong with a society or group, for which there does not seem to be a quick or easy solution. There is no easy short-term solution to Britain's chronic economic malaise 经济疲态. Unification has brought soaring unemployment and social malaise. economic and social malaise. ) can't all be blamed on Brexit. Global growth has slowed due to Russia's "unprovoked aggression" the OECD says. It's slumped 下滑, 下跌 to 3% this year and is expected to dwindle 收缩 to 2.8% in 2023. Covid-19 has taken its toll too. For all his crowing ( crow I. 公鸡, 打鸣 if a rooster (=male chicken) crows, it makes a loud high noise. When a cock crows, it makes a loud sound, often early in the morning. The cock crows and the dawn chorus begins. II. 吹嘘. 吹牛. [informal, disapproval] to talk very proudly about something that you have done, especially when you have defeated someone. If you say that someone is crowing about something they have achieved or are pleased about, you disapprove of them because they keep telling people proudly about it. Edwards is already crowing about his assured victory. We've seen them all crowing that the movement is dead. II. British 高兴的说. 高兴的叫. if a baby crows, it makes a sound that shows it is happy. If someone crows, they make happy sounds or say something happily. She was crowing with delight. 'I'm not sure I've ever driven a better lap,' crowed a delighted Irvine. as the crow flies If you say that a place is a particular distance away as the crow flies, you mean that it is that distance away measured in a straight line. It was 150 miles inland from Boston as the crow flies. ) about being the prime minister to break the political deadlock and "Get Brexit Done," Johnson's government has failed to secure a trade deal with Brussels. On top of that his government has published a bill that will tear up the one deal it has managed to do with the EU, the Northern Ireland Protocol, which Johnson himself negotiated and signed. Incensed 激怒 by a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which stopped Britain sending asylum seekers from England to Rwanda, Johnson's government is now threatening to leave its jurisdiction. The World Trade Organization (WTO), the child of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was a very British vision. The Northern Ireland Protocol is a British-EU treaty intended to secure the Good Friday Agreement which brought peace to Northern Ireland. Ripping into the fabric 撕毁 of these contracts( fabric of society: what holds us together as members of a group, or society. It's a metaphor using 'fabric' to show how this feeling, creed, action or belief are like threads in a piece of cloth, tightly woven together. So to tear (rip apart) this "fabric" could be very disruptive to everything this society holds sacred. fabric I. The fabric of a society or system is its basic structure, with all the customs and beliefs that make it work successfully. The fabric of society has been deeply damaged by the previous regime. Years of civil war have wrecked the country's infrastructure and destroyed its social fabric. II. The fabric of a building is its walls, roof, and the materials with which it is built. Condensation will eventually cause the fabric of the building to rot away. ) undermines Britain's standing in the world. A British Prime Minister's threat to leave the ECHR, a court the British helped set up to establish a pan-European legal system to prevent atrocities in Europe in the wake of the Second World War, must seem bizarre to Ukrainians. Indeed it's Ukraine's desire to join the EU that provoked the revolution against pro-Putin anti-EU president Victor Yanukovich in 2014. That same desire is probably the biggest reason for Putin's invasion. Though his stated excuse for a brazen abuse of international law was to "de-Nazify" Ukraine and stop the country joining NATO. But a democratic, free, EU member state on Putin's doorstep with a substantial Russian-speaking population is the sort of personal existential threat that must conjure up the images of Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Gadhafi's ignominious 丢人的 demise. No dictator wants to end their rule with a bayonet up the backside.
关于lock-in/escalating commitment/sunk cost fallacy: Lock-in can be seen as the escalating commitment 进一步的投入, 逐步升级的投入 of decision-makers to an ineffective course of action ( 行动方针, 决策 the procedures or sequence of actions that someone will follow to accomplish a goal. I plan to follow a course of action that will produce the best results. The board planned a course of action that would reduce costs and eliminate employees. ). It concerns institutional (Characteristic or suggestive of an institution, especially in being uniform, dull, or unimaginative, routine, and uniform institutional meals, institutional furniture; a pale institutional green.) lock-in as compared to technical lock-in 技术绑定
of which the QWERTY keyboard is a famous example. The decision-making
process is characterised by various informal and formal decision-making
moments and decision-makers can become committed to the project before the formal decision to build was taken. More recently the term sunk cost fallacy 既有成本 ( fallacy ['fæləsi] 假象, 骗局 an incorrect or misleading notion or opinion based on inaccurate facts or invalid reasoning. sunk cost 收不回来的成本, 收不回来的投入, 已投入成本 A sunk cost is an expense that you have already paid for or committed to and which you cannot change. The sunk cost is the money that cannot be recovered by subsequent resale of an asset. A sunk cost is money, time, or another resource that has been irretrievably spent. A sunk cost is an expense that you have already paid for or committed to and which you cannot change. ), instead of Escalation of commitment 承诺升级, has been used to describe the phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative ['kju:mjulətiv] prior investment 前期累积投入, despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, starting today, of continuing the decision outweighs the expected benefit. Alternatively, irrational escalation非理性升级 (sometimes referred to as irrational escalation of commitment or commitment bias) is a term frequently used in psychology, philosophy, economics, and game theory to refer to a situation in which people can make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken. Examples are frequently seen when parties engage in a bidding war; the bidders can end up paying much more than the object is worth to justify the initial expenses associated with bidding (such as research), as well as part of a competitive instinct. In economics and business decision-making, sunk costs 现有成本, 已投入成本 are retrospective (past) costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are sometimes contrasted with prospective costs预期成本, which are future costs that may be incurred or changed if an action is taken. A sunk cost dilemma
is a dilemma of having to choose between continuing a project of
uncertain prospects already involving considerable sunk costs, or
discontinuing the project. The process of escalating commitment is also known as "entrapment" , the "sunk-cost effect", the "knee-deep in the big muddy" effect, and the "too-much-invested-to-quit" effect. A grey market or gray market灰市(合法但非授权非正常的交易渠道) also known as parallel market is the trade of a commodity
through distribution channels which, while legal, are unofficial,
unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer. The term gray economy灰色收入, 灰色经济, however, refers to workers being paid under the table, without paying income taxes or contributing to such public services as Social Security and Medicare. It is sometimes referred to as the underground economy or "hidden economy隐形收入, 隐形经济." A black market黑市(非法交易渠道) is the trade of goods and services that are illegal in themselves and/or distributed through illegal channels, such as the selling of stolen goods, certain drugs or unregistered handguns.
The two main types of grey market are imported manufactured goods that
would normally be unavailable or more expensive in a certain country
and unissued securities that are not yet traded in official markets.
Sometimes the term dark market暗市(秘密的, 私下里的但是合法的交易渠道) is used to describe secretive, unregulated (though often technically legal) trading in commodity futures,
notably crude oil in 2008. This can be considered a third type of
"grey market" since it is legal, yet unregulated, and probably not
intended or explicitly authorized by oil producers. Grey import vehicles are new or used motor vehicles and motorcycles legally imported from another country through channels other than the maker's official distribution system. The synonymous term parallel import is sometimes substituted.
