花间半壶酒

我说过，当我没啥可写或者不想写的时候，要么总结饭否，要么贴英文，现在到了贴English的日子了，贴几段优美英文，与诸位分享。这种文章，英文读来优美无比，翻译了反而会失去味道。

We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less common sense; more knowledge, but less judgement; more experts, but more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.

We spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get to angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too often, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too little and lie too often. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life; we’ve added years to life, not life to years.

We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We’ve conquered outer space, but not inner space. We’ve split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less.

We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait; we have higher incomes, but lower morals. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies, but have less communication. We are long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men and short character; steep profits and shallow relationships. More leisure and less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition; two incomes, but more divorce; fancier houses, but broken homes.

其实这段文字老早就读过，当时即感回味无穷，现在揣摩更是别有风味，对于这种文章，背过这些或许更好一些吧^^，只是我好久没有背东西了，汗颜啊……赶快结束糜烂的生活吧……

好久没贴一段E文了，今日从鼎鼎大名的美国《独立宣言》中节选了第二段出来，句句经典，也是其中我最喜欢的一段，虽然这么贴有割裂全文的感觉，但我不想令篇幅过长，将就看了，同样不予翻译和分析。

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. — The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

宣言的技巧在于解释。

1,red tape，红色带子，繁文缛节。以前的英国官方文件惯例上是用红色布带系成一扎一扎的，red tape的比喻由此而来。

2,pink slip，粉色小纸片，也就是解聘通知书。使用粉色一方面是为了避免和其他的资料混在一起，以免员工因疏忽没看到通知；另一方面也许是因为粉红色相对比较柔和，可能会对被解雇员工“受伤的心灵”产生一点慰藉作用。

3,green card，绿卡。 绿卡这个词起源于美国，因为最早美国的永久居留许可证是一张绿色的卡片，随着设计的变化已经更新了19个版本，现在它已经是一张白色有黄绿色花纹的塑料卡片，但是绿卡这个名称一直被保留了下来。其他国家沿用美国的说法，也会将本国的永久居留许可证俗称为绿卡。

4,blackmail，黑信，敲诈勒索。blackmail这个词流行于18世纪的苏格兰农民中，如果农民不叫税(mail，rent的老式说法)，当地首领就会盗走农民的家畜或农作物，这被认为是邪恶的，“黑”的。

5,yellow page，黄页。仅仅因为当时白纸用完了，用黄色的纸印了电话目录，后来被发扬光大了，仅此而已。

6,blueprint，蓝图。用“蓝晒机”制作成工程图副本，颜色都是蓝色，人们就依此而称呼设想、设计都是”蓝图”。

在考研期间想到看到 pink slip而联想到其它单词，觉得挺好玩就稍加总结，记了下来，又从wiki，百度，雅虎上面找了点解释加到后面，就是这样。

写在前面：最近没什么心情写BLOG，所以贴一篇著名的演讲出来，Gettysburg Address，林肯总统的。这篇演讲我以前背诵过（可惜现在忘的差不多了），气势磅礴，我想啊，要是我考研作文能写出这水平就好了。尤其是最后一句：government of the people, by the people, for the people演变为后来孙中山先生的三民主义。

在《他改变了中国——江泽民传》中提到，江泽民在出任上海市长时曾经面对学生，背诵了这篇演讲，这种气魄让我对老江是肃然起敬。

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

“THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,

and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

THEN THEY CAME for me,

and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

This statement, attributed to Pastor Martin Niemoeller, has become a legendary expression of the lesson of the Holocaust. Ironically, Niemoller had delivered antisemitic sermons early in the Nazi regime. He later opposed Hitler and was sent to a concentration camp.

PS.今天是BLOG DAY，了解了一下，要求还挺多，要链接还要推荐什么，我就不按你的要求来，气死你。