我看了10月16日最新一期经济学人中文章,在公众号“高斋外刊双语精读”上挑选其中一些表达分享大家。时间有限,译文仅供参考,转载请注明出处。
01
熟词偏义
其中有篇文章提到社交平台上的虚假信息等该由审查,标题是:
Who should police the web?
谁应该监管网络?
Politicians should not offload the responsibility onto others.
政客不应该把责任推给别人。
1. Police:我们看到标题中有police。这个单词最常见的意思是作名词,表示“警察;警方”,如“报警”call the police,比如电影《海上钢琴师》中的这句台词:Get out of my sight, or I will call the police. 你快滚,否则我要报警了。
police在今天这里是作动词,表示监督、管制、管教。如:the body that polices the investment management business 监督投资管理事务的机构。
还比如经济学人中这句:She worries about those without parents at home to police them, and those—mostly boys, she says sadly—going “through a rebellious age” who don’t see the point of study. 她替这两种学生担忧:没有父母在家监督的学生,还有正处于“叛逆期”的学生。她语气悲伤地说道,叛逆的绝大多数是男生,他们还没有意识到学习的重要性。
2. Offload:我们看到副标题中有offload,这个单词常见意思是卸货,如柯林斯词典中这句:The supplies need to be offloaded and put on helicopters. 这些补给要卸下来装上直升机。还可以引申为卸下包袱,如《亿万》中这句:You'd never offload it. 你永远都无法卸下这样的包袱。
其实它有好几个不太熟悉的意思:
A. 可以表示倾倒,如柯林斯词典中这句:They should stop offloading waste from oil tankers into the sea. 他们应当停止从油轮上往海里倾倒废弃物。
B. 还可以表示转手、转售、抛售,如金融时报中这句:Analysts said it was likely institutional investors had tried to offload their shares to retail traders en masse, driving down prices. 分析师表示,可能是机构投资者都试图将手中的股票抛售给散户,从而压低了股价。
还比如我们要说“他陷入了财政困难,将这幅画卖给了一家美术馆。”就可以说:Already in financial difficulties, he offloaded the painting on to a museum.
C. 还可以表示把(担子等)转移某人,即offload sth on/onto sb,如牛津词典中这句:It's nice to have someone you can offload your problems onto. 你有个能分忧的人真是不错。
常见的表达有offload responsibility for sth,表示不想承担……,还有offload the responsibility onto sb,表示把责任推给谁。如外刊中这句:Some employers might be seeking to offload responsibility for sick pay, holiday pay, and travel between jobs. 有些雇主不想承担病假工资、休假工资和出差费用。
在表示把(担子等)转移某人这个意思时,offload的同义词是shift,通过下面这段经济学人中they have shifted much of their basic manufacturing to China和they offloaded low-end work to China就可以看出:
Like other wealthy economies, they have shifted much of their basic manufacturing to China’s mainland. Most emblematic is Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics company known now as the main assembler of iPhones. As they offloaded low-end work to China’s mainland, the tigers moved upstream. South Korea is the world’s biggest maker of memory chips.
和其他富裕经济体一样,四小龙已经将许多基础制造业转移到了中国大陆。最具代表性的是台湾电子公司富士康,现在因作为iPhone的主要组装商而知名。当四小龙将低端工作转移到中国大陆时,它们自己就向上游移动了。韩国是世界上最大的存储芯片制造商。
所以,offload the responsibility也可以说shift the responsibility,如《你逃我也逃》中这句:Shifting the responsibility on me again?又把责任推到我身上?
02
英语写作句型
这篇提到社交网站很多内容都是社交平台自己审查,这些私营公司最终承担了很多责任,但有时候这些机构在审查的时候会忽视公众利益,因此政府应该多承担一些审查责任。我们看看经济学人是怎么说的:
Social networks are deciding what kinds of misinformation to ban. Web-hosting companies are taking down sites they deem harmful.
现在,由社交网络平台决定禁止发布哪类虚假信息,虚拟主机提供商关闭危险网站。
What is more, in many areas the gatekeeping power wielded by private firms is really a consequence of government inaction. Limiting children’s access to viral content are areas where governments could act if they wanted to. Instead, the approach of many has been to do nothing and then feign shock when profit-maximising companies come up with answers that may not be in the interest of society.
Politicians are right to warn that some private companies have too much power online. But those firms have ended up with so much responsibility partly because politicians themselves have abdicated it.
更重要的是,在许多领域私营企业拥有审查权实际上是zf不作为的结果。如果zf想采取措施,可以限制儿童接触有害信息。相反,许多zf的做法是什么也不做,然后在利润最大化的公司给出可能不符合社会利益的解决方案时假装震惊。
政客警告一些私营公司在网络上拥有太多权力,这种做法是正确的。但这些公司最终承担了如此多的责任/拥有这么多权力,部分原因是政客自己放弃了责任。
1. Misinformation:指错误消息,虚假信息,这个在20年11月CATTI二笔实务真题中考过,常见还有disinformation(尤指政府机构故意发的)虚假信息
2. Web-hosting companies:Web-hosting指虚拟主机托管。Web-hosting companies指虚拟主机提供商,比如阿里云。
3. taking down sites they deem harmful:take down表关闭,下架,也可以说drop。they deem harmful是sites的定语从句。
4. 长难句分析:wielded by private firms是the gatekeeping power的后置定语。where governments could act是areas的定语从句,if they wanted to最后省去了act,是为了避免重复。when profit-maximising companies come up with answers that may not be in the interest of society是then feign shock部分的状语,that may not be in the interest of society是answers的定语从句。
5. Wield power:表示行使权力。如没有什么实权wield little power,相反,操纵着大权是wield enormous power。Wield还可以表示挥舞。如《权力的游戏》中这个。