我的HKFP第一則報導：香港人(我不是中國人香港是我家)抗議跳中國"廣場舞"之衝突.....
This week our correspondents discuss the Dawn spacecraft arriving at Ceres and the perils of security backdoors in softwarehttp://econ.st/1DVGlVa
HKFP Voices: "This protest was never really about aunties dancing on the street, but instead a proxy fight for what many believe is the increasing mainlandisation of Hong Kong." - Richard Scotford.
This week our correspondents discuss the Dawn spacecraft arriving at Ceres and the perils of security backdoors in softwarehttp://econ.st/1DVGlVa
By FIONA MAAZEL
Novelists can peer into places like North Korea, with help from Google Earth.
'Coolidge'
By AMITY SHLAES
Reviewed by JACOB HEILBRUNN
Amity Shlaes depicts Calvin Coolidge as a paragon of a president, less for what he did than for what he did not do.
Suu Kyi calls for support of UKBurmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi calls on the UK to support moves to democracy in Burma, in an historic address to MPs and peers.
Lords bid for welfare concessions
Peers are to press for changes to government plans for a cap on benefits families can receive, when the measure is debated in the Lords later.
Chefs appear to have more unhealthy habits than any other profession while those in advertising are near paragons of virtue, a survey suggests.
調查顯示，廚師似乎比其他行業的人還要有更多不健康的習慣，廣告業的人則近乎道德模範。
'Mashups'
Plus ça change (plus c'est la même chose). SAYINGThe more things change, the more they stay the same. Used when a change does not result in an improvement in a situation:
What's the point in voting? Plus ça change...
Language
Plus ça change? Not quite
Aug 9th 2007
From The Economist print edition
From The Economist print edition
Clichés are always tired. Increasingly, they are also wrong
Illustration by Peter Schrank
rest in peace
1 said to express the hope that someone's spirit has found peace after they have died:
She was a decent and compassionate woman: may she rest in peace.
2 (WRITTEN ABBREVIATION RIP) often written on a gravestone
TECHNOLOGY constantly overtakes language. Recent additions to the Oxford English Dictionary have included po-faced entries for “Google” (the verb), “wiki” and “mash-up”. But most clichés are stubbornly indifferent to such concerns. Indeed, they often act as a linguistic fossil record, preserving objects and behaviour that have long since fallen into petrified obsolescence. Industrious sorts no longer burn the midnight oil. Flashes in the pan are common even if the flintlock muskets that gave rise to them are museum pieces. Colours are still nailed to masts, metal though they now usually are.
flash in the pan
something that happened only once or for a short time and was not repeated:
Sadly, their success was just a flash in the pan.
heavy metal (METAL) noun [C] SPECIALIZED
a dense and usually poisonous metal, such as lead
heavy metal (MUSIC) noun [U]
a style of rock music with a strong beat, played very loudly using electrical instruments
bounce (NOT PAY)
verb [I or T] INFORMAL
to (cause a cheque to) not be paid or accepted by a bank because of a lack of money in the account:
I had to pay a penalty fee when my cheque bounced.
To my horror the bank bounced the cheque.
bounce (EMAIL)
verb [I or T]
If an email that you send bounces or is bounced, it comes back to you because the address is wrong or there is a computer problem.have a card up your sleeve
to have an advantage that other people do not know about:
Well, Alan, England have definitely been the weaker side in the first half, but I think they've still got one or two cards up their sleeve.
(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
In a technological age ever more clichés are being untethered from their origins in this way. People write out plenty of metaphorical cheques, whether blank or bouncing. Many of them are to be found in the post, but fewer in real life (some shops no longer accept them). There is no need to keep your cards close to your chest, or indeed an ace up your sleeve, when so much gambling happens online. Thanks to reviews, awards and celebrity book-club stickers, you can in fact judge a book by its cover. If you carry a mobile phone, write e-mail or post entries on MySpace, being out of sight does not mean being out of mind. And in the age of the iPod, no one can be accused of being unable to carry a tune.
Old assumptions are stranded by other changes too. Currencies fluctuate: the dollar looks less than almighty, at least for the moment. Populations evolve: Tom, Dick and Harry make for an unrepresentative trio of everymen today; Kevin, Chloe and Muhammad would be more accurate. Trade patterns shift: turning down all the tea in China would weigh heavily, to be sure, but the European Union is more impressed by the Chinese production of bras and dressing-gowns. Today's coast is never clear but always strewn with plastic and other detritus. Rare is the athlete who can radiate Olympian calm at a modern-day Olympic games.
Earnest environmental concerns are also starting to flip well-worn phrases on their heads. Putting new wine into old bottles is now to be applauded. Where it was once desirable to trail clouds of glory, they now require emissions credits. Regulators are another threat. Hunting-grounds, happy or not, are fewer in number. Recently shelved plans by the European Commission to get rid of Britain's imperial measures endangered all manner of activities, from exacting a pound of flesh, inching forward and feeling ten feet tall to being miles away.
Being archaic does not always make a cliché redundant. People still jump on bandwagons, read the riot act, burn the candle at both ends and keep irons in fires. As long as its meaning is clear, a saying can be both historic and current.
The trouble comes when technology robs a cliché of its substance as well as its form. When love fades, the jilted may seek consolation in the thought that there are plenty more fish in the sea. But there aren't: the oceans have been plundered. “For everything there is a season” is a phrase with a ring of majestic certainty. But with air-freighted fruit and genetically modified veg, it too is wrong. And if once it was believed that the camera never lied, PhotoShop should have taught that the lens bends the truth as effortlessly as it bends light itself. As for rocket science, not long ago it was held up as the paragon of baffling complexity. Now, as tourists hurtle into space and almost every failed state seems poised to go ballistic, rocket science seems less sophisticated. Proud owners of silicon implants scoff at the notion that beauty is only skin-deep. Among the transgendered, Bob is as likely to be your auntie as your uncle.
The moral of it all? Clichés just aren't what they used to be.
canaille, PEERAGE of words
底下這 canaille 應該從它本義講 而不應該翻譯為群氓:
A well- educated gentleman may not know many languages,--may not be able to speak any but his own,--may have read very few books. But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the PEERAGE of words; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille; remembers all their ancestry, their intermarriages, distant relationships, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held, among the national noblesse of words at any time, and in any country.
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Sesame and Lilies, by John Ruskin
canaille
(kə-nī', -nāl')n.
- The masses of the people; the proletariat.
- Rabble; riffraff.
[French, from Italian canaglia, pack of dogs, rabble, from cane, dog, from Latin canis.]
IN BRIEF: Noun- A member of the mob.
auntie
ˈɑːnti/
noun
noun: aunty
- informal term for aunt. 大娘
- BRITISHinformalthe BBC.singular proper noun: Auntie; noun: Auntie
par·a·gon (păr'ə-gŏn', -gən)
n.
- A model of excellence or perfection of a kind; a peerless example: a paragon of virtue.
- An unflawed diamond weighing at least 100 carats.
- A very large spherical pearl.
- Printing. A type size of 20 points.
- To compare; parallel.
- To equal; match.
[Obsolete French, from Old French, from Old Italian paragone, from paragonare, to test on a touchstone, perhaps from Greek parakonān, to sharpen : para-, alongside; see para-1 + akonē, whetstone.]
Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues.
***
Clean energy coming in smaller packages
2010/03/06
A sheet of glass embedded with spherical solar cells developed by Kyosemi Corp. attracts attention at a Tokyo trade show. (NOBORU TOMURA/ THE ASAHI SHIMBUN)
One of the brightest stars at a trade show for solar power and fuel-cell technology at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center turned out to be one of the smallest there.
Shown off in the three-day event were spherical solar cells with a diameter of 1.8 millimeters developed by Kyoto-based semiconductor maker Kyosemi Corp.
The Sphelar solar modules can be embedded in large number into window glass or sheets of flexible plastic.
Among other popular items were solar-charged panels that display in eight colors, including gold, purple and green. They were developed by Taiwanese maker Jintec Corp.
About 1,300 companies exhibited their products in the show, which ended Friday.
Shown off in the three-day event were spherical solar cells with a diameter of 1.8 millimeters developed by Kyoto-based semiconductor maker Kyosemi Corp.
The Sphelar solar modules can be embedded in large number into window glass or sheets of flexible plastic.
Among other popular items were solar-charged panels that display in eight colors, including gold, purple and green. They were developed by Taiwanese maker Jintec Corp.
About 1,300 companies exhibited their products in the show, which ended Friday.
Pronunciation: /ˈsɪəriːz/
Definition of Ceres in English:
peer[peer1]
- 発音記号[píər][名]
1 ((しばしばone's 〜s))（社会的に）同等の地位の人；同僚, （法律上の）対等者；（能力・資格・年齢などが）同等の［匹敵する］人；((古))友人, 仲間
［古フランス語←ラテン語pār（平等の）. 貴族が互いに平等であることより］
peerage
ˈpɪərɪdʒ/
noun
plural noun: peerages
- the title and rank of peer or peeress."on his retirement as cabinet secretary, he was given a peerage"
- peers as a class.noun: the peerage"he was elevated to the peerage two years ago"
- a book containing a list of peers and peeresses, with their genealogy and history.
| peerless | (adjective) Eminent beyond or above comparison. |
| Synonyms: | matchless, nonpareil, one and only, unrivaled, unmatched, one |
| Usage: | You shall now learn how great is the knowledge and power of our peerless Sorceress. |
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