2014年3月30日 星期日

mass protest/rally, agreeing to a line-by-line review of the deal in the legislature

Mass protest held in Taiwan against China trade deal

Protesters denounce the controversial China Taiwan trade pact during a mass protest in Taipei, 30 MarchThe protesters say the trade deal would leave Taiwan open to Chinese pressure

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At least 100,000 people have taken to the streets of Taiwan's capital Taipei, to protest against a controversial trade agreement with China.
They carried signs reading "defend democracy, withdraw the trade deal".
President Ma Ying-jeou insists the deal will bring economic benefits, but campaigners says it will make Taiwan too economically dependent on China.
The protesters expressed support for students who have occupied parliament for two weeks in protest at the deal.
The agreement will allow China and Taiwan to invest more freely in each other's services markets.
The protesters say it will hurt small businesses and job opportunities for local people, and should be scrapped.
They are also demanding that the government pass a law to monitor all future deals with Beijing.
In recent days, the president has made several concessions, including supporting such a law and agreeing to a line-by-line review of the deal in the legislature.
Protesters denounce the controversial China Taiwan trade pact during a mass protest in Taipei, 30 MarchPolice put the number of protesters at more than 100,000, but organisers say there were 700,000
Protesters denounce the controversial China Taiwan trade pact during a mass protest in Taipei, 30 MarchThe protesters say they are defending democracy
But he says the pact should not be cancelled, because it will give Taiwanese companies greater access to the Chinese market.
Business groups and others have voiced support for the deal. The governing Kuomintang party says it is determined to ratify it.
The agreement, which was signed in June 2013, has not yet been approved by MPs.
China formally regards Taiwan as a part of its territory, despite the island governing itself for six decades.
But China is Taiwan's biggest trading partner and in recent years ties between the two have improved.
They have signed several trade and investment agreements - but some fear greater economic integration with China could threaten Taiwan.

2014年3月28日 星期五

on the horns of a dilemma, On the antlers of dilemma, internecine, Between a rock and a hard place,





On the antlers of a dilemma

The ambitions of Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president, collide with popular suspicion of China


THE fresh-faced good looks have been lined and drawn by the cares of office. His immaculate English is forsaken for the dignity of immaculate Mandarin. Patient replies to questions come wearily, as if said many times before. Yet, six years into his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou’s hair remains as lush and jet-black as any Chinese Politburo member’s. And, speaking in the presidential palace in Taipei, he remains as unwilling as any leader in Beijing to admit to any fundamental flaws in strategy.
Perhaps Mr Ma draws inspiration from his portrait of Sun Yat-sen, founder of his ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and, in 1912, of the Republic of China to which Taiwan’s government still owes its name. Sun is revered as a nationalist hero not just by the KMT but, across the Taiwan Strait, by the Chinese Communist Party too. Mr Ma may also hope to be feted on both sides of the strait—in his case as a leader responsible for a historic rapprochement. For now, however, reconciliation between Taiwan and China remains distant. And Mr Ma, once the KMT’s most popular politician, is taunted by opponents as the “9% president”, a reference to his approval ratings in opinion polls last autumn.




Improving relations with China has been the central theme of his administration, after the tensions of eight years of rule by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards declaring formal independence from the mainland. Mr Ma can boast of 21 agreements signed with China. He reels off the numbers of two fast-integrating economies: a tenfold increase in six years in mainland tourists to Taiwan, to 2.85m in 2013; cross-strait flights from none at all to 118 every day; two-way trade, including with Hong Kong, up to $160 billion a year.
China’s strategy to reabsorb Taiwan is plain. As the island’s economy becomes more intertwined with that of the vast mainland, China thinks, resistance to unification will wane. Then Taiwan becomes an “autonomous” part of China—like Hong Kong, though allowed its own army. Taiwan will return to the motherland without resort to the missiles and increasingly powerful armed forces ranged against it. But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”. Politics in Taiwan is framed as a debate about independence or unification but is really about preserving the status quo.
The next step in rapprochement with China would be a meeting between political leaders. In February in Nanjing, once the capital of a KMT government of all China, ministers from China and Taiwan held their first formal meeting since 1949. Mr Ma hoped to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. To accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan, APEC’s members are not “countries” but “economies”. So Mr Xi and Mr Ma could meet as “economic leaders”, sidestepping the tricky protocol that usually dogs relations, with China viewing Taiwan as a mere province. The Chinese demurred. But Mr Ma thinks a meeting somewhere is “not outside the realm of possibility”.
This backdrop explains why a protest movement against a services-trade agreement with the mainland is more than a little local difficulty for Mr Ma. Students occupying parliament have resorted to undemocratic means, and many of the arguments they and the DPP make about the trade agreement are specious. But they have tapped a vein of popular mistrust of Mr Ma and of economic integration with the mainland. A split persists between native Taiwanese, on the island for generations, and mainlanders, like Mr Ma, whose families came over as the KMT lost the civil war in the 1940s. Protesters portray Mr Ma as either a mainland stooge or as clueless and out of touch. In the occupied parliament, student caricatures give him antlers, a reference to a slip he once made when he appeared to suggest that the deer-antlers used in Chinese medicine were in fact hair from the animal’s ears.
Mr Ma says public opinion supports a “Ma-Xi” summit. Joseph Wu of the DPP, however, claims such a meeting would actually damage the KMT in the next presidential election, due in 2016; rather, he says, Mr Ma is trying to leave a personal legacy. The DPP’s lead in the polls alarms not just the Chinese government but also America, which could do without another flare-up in a dangerous region. The stronger China grows, the more Taiwan’s security depends on commitments from America. It switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, but Congress then passed a law obliging it to help Taiwan defend itself.
All political lives end…
Mr Ma says relations with America are better than they have ever been at least since 1979 and perhaps before. Others are doubtful. In all the talk of America’s “pivot” to Asia, its promises to Taiwan are rarely mentioned. Many in Taiwan paid attention when John Mearsheimer, an American academic, suggested in the National Interest, a policy journal, that there is “a reasonable chance American policymakers will eventually conclude that it makes good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and to allow China to coerce it into accepting unification.” For some, abandonment is a fact of life and unification a matter of time. “No one is on our side strategically, diplomatically, politically; we have to count on China’s goodwill,” an academic in Taipei argues.
Mr Ma has tried to steer what seems a sensible middle course between such defeatism and the adventurism of those in the DPP who would like to confront and challenge China. But he sounds weary with the effort, and Taiwan’s people seem weary of him. Their pragmatism and the DPP’s internecine strife may yet see them elect another KMT president in 2016. But if Mr Ma hoped to leave office with cross-strait relations stabilised, and with his own role as an historic peacemaker recognised on both sides and around the world, he seems likely to be disappointed.
- See more at: http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21599812-ambitions-ma-ying-jeou-taiwans-president-collide-popular-suspicion-china#sthash.74E8Fq3f.dpuf




On the antlers of a dilemma

The ambitions of Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president, collide with popular suspicion of China


THE fresh-faced good looks have been lined and drawn by the cares of office. His immaculate English is forsaken for the dignity of immaculate Mandarin. Patient replies to questions come wearily, as if said many times before. Yet, six years into his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou’s hair remains as lush and jet-black as any Chinese Politburo member’s. And, speaking in the presidential palace in Taipei, he remains as unwilling as any leader in Beijing to admit to any fundamental flaws in strategy.
Perhaps Mr Ma draws inspiration from his portrait of Sun Yat-sen, founder of his ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and, in 1912, of the Republic of China to which Taiwan’s government still owes its name. Sun is revered as a nationalist hero not just by the KMT but, across the Taiwan Strait, by the Chinese Communist Party too. Mr Ma may also hope to be feted on both sides of the strait—in his case as a leader responsible for a historic rapprochement. For now, however, reconciliation between Taiwan and China remains distant. And Mr Ma, once the KMT’s most popular politician, is taunted by opponents as the “9% president”, a reference to his approval ratings in opinion polls last autumn.




Improving relations with China has been the central theme of his administration, after the tensions of eight years of rule by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards declaring formal independence from the mainland. Mr Ma can boast of 21 agreements signed with China. He reels off the numbers of two fast-integrating economies: a tenfold increase in six years in mainland tourists to Taiwan, to 2.85m in 2013; cross-strait flights from none at all to 118 every day; two-way trade, including with Hong Kong, up to $160 billion a year.
China’s strategy to reabsorb Taiwan is plain. As the island’s economy becomes more intertwined with that of the vast mainland, China thinks, resistance to unification will wane. Then Taiwan becomes an “autonomous” part of China—like Hong Kong, though allowed its own army. Taiwan will return to the motherland without resort to the missiles and increasingly powerful armed forces ranged against it. But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”. Politics in Taiwan is framed as a debate about independence or unification but is really about preserving the status quo.
The next step in rapprochement with China would be a meeting between political leaders. In February in Nanjing, once the capital of a KMT government of all China, ministers from China and Taiwan held their first formal meeting since 1949. Mr Ma hoped to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. To accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan, APEC’s members are not “countries” but “economies”. So Mr Xi and Mr Ma could meet as “economic leaders”, sidestepping the tricky protocol that usually dogs relations, with China viewing Taiwan as a mere province. The Chinese demurred. But Mr Ma thinks a meeting somewhere is “not outside the realm of possibility”.
This backdrop explains why a protest movement against a services-trade agreement with the mainland is more than a little local difficulty for Mr Ma. Students occupying parliament have resorted to undemocratic means, and many of the arguments they and the DPP make about the trade agreement are specious. But they have tapped a vein of popular mistrust of Mr Ma and of economic integration with the mainland. A split persists between native Taiwanese, on the island for generations, and mainlanders, like Mr Ma, whose families came over as the KMT lost the civil war in the 1940s. Protesters portray Mr Ma as either a mainland stooge or as clueless and out of touch. In the occupied parliament, student caricatures give him antlers, a reference to a slip he once made when he appeared to suggest that the deer-antlers used in Chinese medicine were in fact hair from the animal’s ears.
Mr Ma says public opinion supports a “Ma-Xi” summit. Joseph Wu of the DPP, however, claims such a meeting would actually damage the KMT in the next presidential election, due in 2016; rather, he says, Mr Ma is trying to leave a personal legacy. The DPP’s lead in the polls alarms not just the Chinese government but also America, which could do without another flare-up in a dangerous region. The stronger China grows, the more Taiwan’s security depends on commitments from America. It switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, but Congress then passed a law obliging it to help Taiwan defend itself.
All political lives end…
Mr Ma says relations with America are better than they have ever been at least since 1979 and perhaps before. Others are doubtful. In all the talk of America’s “pivot” to Asia, its promises to Taiwan are rarely mentioned. Many in Taiwan paid attention when John Mearsheimer, an American academic, suggested in the National Interest, a policy journal, that there is “a reasonable chance American policymakers will eventually conclude that it makes good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and to allow China to coerce it into accepting unification.” For some, abandonment is a fact of life and unification a matter of time. “No one is on our side strategically, diplomatically, politically; we have to count on China’s goodwill,” an academic in Taipei argues.
Mr Ma has tried to steer what seems a sensible middle course between such defeatism and the adventurism of those in the DPP who would like to confront and challenge China. But he sounds weary with the effort, and Taiwan’s people seem weary of him. Their pragmatism and the DPP’s internecine strife may yet see them elect another KMT president in 2016. But if Mr Ma hoped to leave office with cross-strait relations stabilised, and with his own role as an historic peacemaker recognised on both sides and around the world, he seems likely to be disappointed.
- See more at: http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21599812-ambitions-ma-ying-jeou-taiwans-president-collide-popular-suspicion-china#sthash.74E8Fq3f.dpuf





Banyan
On the antlers of a dilemma
The ambitions of Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president, collide with popular suspicion of China Mar 29th 2014 | From the print edition


THE fresh-faced good looks have been lined and drawn by the cares of office. His immaculate English is forsaken for the dignity of immaculate Mandarin. Patient replies to questions come wearily, as if said many times before. Yet, six years into his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou’s hair remains as lush and jet-black as any Chinese Politburo member’s. And, speaking in the presidential palace in Taipei, he remains as unwilling as any leader in Beijing to admit to any fundamental flaws in strategy.

Perhaps Mr Ma draws inspiration from his portrait of Sun Yat-sen, founder of his ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and, in 1912, of the Republic of China to which Taiwan’s government still owes its name. Sun is revered as a nationalist hero not just by the KMT but, across the Taiwan Strait, by the Chinese Communist Party too. Mr Ma may also hope to be feted on both sides of the strait—in his case as a leader responsible for a historic rapprochement. For now, however, reconciliation between Taiwan and China remains distant. And Mr Ma, once the KMT’s most popular politician, is taunted by opponents as the “9% president”, a reference to his approval ratings in opinion polls last autumn.


Economic integration Improving relations with China has been the central theme of his administration, after the tensions of eight years of rule by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards declaring formal independence from the mainland. Mr Ma can boast of 21 agreements signed with China. He reels off the numbers of two fast-integrating economies: a tenfold increase in six years in mainland tourists to Taiwan, to 2.85m in 2013; cross-strait flights from none at all to 118 every day; two-way trade, including with Hong Kong, up to $160 billion a year.


China’s strategy to reabsorb Taiwan is plain. As the island’s economy becomes more intertwined with that of the vast mainland, China thinks, resistance to unification will wane. Then Taiwan becomes an “autonomous” part of China—like Hong Kong, though allowed its own army. Taiwan will return to the motherland without resort to the missiles and increasingly powerful armed forces ranged against it. But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”. Politics in Taiwan is framed as a debate about independence or unification but is really about preserving the status quo.

The next step in rapprochement with China would be a meeting between political leaders. In February in Nanjing, once the capital of a KMT government of all China, ministers from China and Taiwan held their first formal meeting since 1949. Mr Ma hoped to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. To accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan, APEC’s members are not “countries” but “economies”. So Mr Xi and Mr Ma could meet as “economic leaders”, sidestepping the tricky protocol that usually dogs relations, with China viewing Taiwan as a mere province. The Chinese demurred. But Mr Ma thinks a meeting somewhere is “not outside the realm of possibility”.

This backdrop explains why a protest movement against a services-trade agreement with the mainland is more than a little local difficulty for Mr Ma. Students occupying parliament have resorted to undemocratic means, and many of the arguments they and the DPP make about the trade agreement are specious. But they have tapped a vein of popular mistrust of Mr Ma and of economic integration with the mainland. A split persists between native Taiwanese, on the island for generations, and mainlanders, like Mr Ma, whose families came over as the KMT lost the civil war in the 1940s. Protesters portray Mr Ma as either a mainland stooge or as clueless and out of touch. In the occupied parliament, student caricatures give him antlers, a reference to a slip he once made when he appeared to suggest that the deer-antlers used in Chinese medicine were in fact hair from the animal’s ears.

Mr Ma says public opinion supports a “Ma-Xi” summit. Joseph Wu of the DPP, however, claims such a meeting would actually damage the KMT in the next presidential election, due in 2016; rather, he says, Mr Ma is trying to leave a personal legacy. The DPP’s lead in the polls alarms not just the Chinese government but also America, which could do without another flare-up in a dangerous region. The stronger China grows, the more Taiwan’s security depends on commitments from America. It switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, but Congress then passed a law obliging it to help Taiwan defend itself.


All political lives end…

Mr Ma says relations with America are better than they have ever been at least since 1979 and perhaps before. Others are doubtful. In all the talk of America’s “pivot” to Asia, its promises to Taiwan are rarely mentioned. Many in Taiwan paid attention when John Mearsheimer, an American academic, suggested in the National Interest, a policy journal, that there is “a reasonable chance American policymakers will eventually conclude that it makes good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and to allow China to coerce it into accepting unification.” For some, abandonment is a fact of life and unification a matter of time. “No one is on our side strategically, diplomatically, politically; we have to count on China’s goodwill,” an academic in Taipei argues.

Mr Ma has tried to steer what seems a sensible middle course between such defeatism and the adventurism of those in the DPP who would like to confront and challenge China. But he sounds weary with the effort, and Taiwan’s people seem weary of him. Their pragmatism and the DPP’s internecine strife may yet see them elect another KMT president in 2016. But if Mr Ma hoped to leave office with cross-strait relations stabilised, and with his own role as an historic peacemaker recognised on both sides and around the world, he seems likely to be disappointed.

Economist.com/blogs/banyan

- See more at: http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21599812-ambitions-ma-ying-jeou-taiwans-president-collide-popular-suspicion-china#sthash.74E8Fq3f.dpuf



and the DPP's internecine strife may....

internecine

Line breaks: inter|necine
Pronunciation: /ˌɪntəˈniːsʌɪn
 
/



adjective

  • 1Destructive to both sides in a conflict: the region’s history of savage internecine warfare
  • 1.1Relating to conflict within a group: the party shrank from the trauma of more internecine strife
    More example sentences
    • There is certainly conflict of an internecine nature going on within me at the moment.
    • But those internecine debates within the Social Security faction are, at the moment, every bit as irrelevant as the internecine debates within the phase out faction.
    • But if you believe that the real fight for power today is an internecine one taking place within the Labour Party rather than between political parties, it seems more than feasible.

Origin

mid 17th century (in the sense 'deadly, characterized by great slaughter'): from Latin internecinus, based on inter- 'among' + necare 'to kill'.




Banyan

On the antlers of a dilemma

The ambitions of Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president, collide with popular suspicion of China


THE fresh-faced good looks have been lined and drawn by the cares of office. His immaculate English is forsaken for the dignity of immaculate Mandarin. Patient replies to questions come wearily, as if said many times before. Yet, six years into his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou’s hair remains as lush and jet-black as any Chinese Politburo member’s. And, speaking in the presidential palace in Taipei, he remains as unwilling as any leader in Beijing to admit to any fundamental flaws in strategy.
Perhaps Mr Ma draws inspiration from his portrait of Sun Yat-sen, founder of his ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and, in 1912, of the Republic of China to which Taiwan’s government still owes its name. Sun is revered as a nationalist hero not just by the KMT but, across the Taiwan Strait, by the Chinese Communist Party too. Mr Ma may also hope to be feted on both sides of the strait—in his case as a leader responsible for a historic rapprochement. For now, however, reconciliation between Taiwan and China remains distant. And Mr Ma, once the KMT’s most popular politician, is taunted by opponents as the “9% president”, a reference to his approval ratings in opinion polls last autumn.




Improving relations with China has been the central theme of his administration, after the tensions of eight years of rule by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards declaring formal independence from the mainland. Mr Ma can boast of 21 agreements signed with China. He reels off the numbers of two fast-integrating economies: a tenfold increase in six years in mainland tourists to Taiwan, to 2.85m in 2013; cross-strait flights from none at all to 118 every day; two-way trade, including with Hong Kong, up to $160 billion a year.
China’s strategy to reabsorb Taiwan is plain. As the island’s economy becomes more intertwined with that of the vast mainland, China thinks, resistance to unification will wane. Then Taiwan becomes an “autonomous” part of China—like Hong Kong, though allowed its own army. Taiwan will return to the motherland without resort to the missiles and increasingly powerful armed forces ranged against it. But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”. Politics in Taiwan is framed as a debate about independence or unification but is really about preserving the status quo.
The next step in rapprochement with China would be a meeting between political leaders. In February in Nanjing, once the capital of a KMT government of all China, ministers from China and Taiwan held their first formal meeting since 1949. Mr Ma hoped to meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. To accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan, APEC’s members are not “countries” but “economies”. So Mr Xi and Mr Ma could meet as “economic leaders”, sidestepping the tricky protocol that usually dogs relations, with China viewing Taiwan as a mere province. The Chinese demurred. But Mr Ma thinks a meeting somewhere is “not outside the realm of possibility”.
This backdrop explains why a protest movement against a services-trade agreement with the mainland is more than a little local difficulty for Mr Ma. Students occupying parliament have resorted to undemocratic means, and many of the arguments they and the DPP make about the trade agreement are specious. But they have tapped a vein of popular mistrust of Mr Ma and of economic integration with the mainland. A split persists between native Taiwanese, on the island for generations, and mainlanders, like Mr Ma, whose families came over as the KMT lost the civil war in the 1940s. Protesters portray Mr Ma as either a mainland stooge or as clueless and out of touch. In the occupied parliament, student caricatures give him antlers, a reference to a slip he once made when he appeared to suggest that the deer-antlers used in Chinese medicine were in fact hair from the animal’s ears.
Mr Ma says public opinion supports a “Ma-Xi” summit. Joseph Wu of the DPP, however, claims such a meeting would actually damage the KMT in the next presidential election, due in 2016; rather, he says, Mr Ma is trying to leave a personal legacy. The DPP’s lead in the polls alarms not just the Chinese government but also America, which could do without another flare-up in a dangerous region. The stronger China grows, the more Taiwan’s security depends on commitments from America. It switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, but Congress then passed a law obliging it to help Taiwan defend itself.
All political lives end…
Mr Ma says relations with America are better than they have ever been at least since 1979 and perhaps before. Others are doubtful. In all the talk of America’s “pivot” to Asia, its promises to Taiwan are rarely mentioned. Many in Taiwan paid attention when John Mearsheimer, an American academic, suggested in the National Interest, a policy journal, that there is “a reasonable chance American policymakers will eventually conclude that it makes good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and to allow China to coerce it into accepting unification.” For some, abandonment is a fact of life and unification a matter of time. “No one is on our side strategically, diplomatically, politically; we have to count on China’s goodwill,” an academic in Taipei argues.
Mr Ma has tried to steer what seems a sensible middle course between such defeatism and the adventurism of those in the DPP who would like to confront and challenge China. But he sounds weary with the effort, and Taiwan’s people seem weary of him. Their pragmatism and the DPP’s internecine strife may yet see them elect another KMT president in 2016. But if Mr Ma hoped to leave office with cross-strait relations stabilised, and with his own role as an historic peacemaker recognised on both sides and around the world, he seems likely to be disappointed.
Economist.com/blogs/banyan
- See more at: http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21599812-ambitions-ma-ying-jeou-taiwans-president-collide-popular-suspicion-china#sthash.74E8Fq3f.dpuf

on the horns of a dilemma

Faced with a decision involving equally unfavourable alternatives. More example sentences
  • Meanwhile, at the Erinsborough Clinic, the young hairless harpy, found herself on the horns of a dilemma, so to speak.
  • Scottish solicitors find themselves on the horns of a dilemma in attempting to comply with recent money laundering legislation, according to Joe Platt, president of the Law Society of Scotland.
  • The judge admitted he was on the horns of a dilemma.


Between a Rock and a Hard Place may refer to:

[edit] See also


****

Between a rock and a hard place


Meaning


In difficulty, faced with a choice between two unsatisfactory options.

Origin


This phrase originated in the USA in the early part of the 20th century. It is the American manifestation of a phrase that exists in several forms in other cultures.

The dilemma of being in a position where one is faced with two equally unwelcome options appears to lie deep in the human psyche. Language always reflects people's preoccupations and there are several phrases that express this predicament. The first of these quite literally conveys the uncomfortable nature of the choice between two lemmas (propositions), i.e. 'on the horns of a dilemma'. Other phrases that compare two less than desirable alternatives are 'the lesser of two evils', 'between the devil and the deep blue sea', 'between Scylla and Charybdis', 'an offer you can't refuse' and 'Hobson's choice'.
The earliest known printed citation of 'between a rock and a hard place' is in the American Dialect Society's publication Dialect Notes V, 1921:
"To be between a rock and a hard place, ...to be bankrupt. Common in Arizona in recent panics; sporadic in California."
Between a rock and a hard placeThe 'recent panics' referred to in that citation are undoubtedly the events surrounding the so-called US Bankers' Panic of 1907. This financial crisis was especially damaging to the mining and railroad industries of the western states.
In 1917, the lack of funding precipitated by the earlier banking crisis led to a dispute between copper mining companies and mineworkers in Bisbee, Arizona. The workers, some of whom had organized in labour unions, approached the company management with a list of demands for better pay and conditions. These were refused and subsequently many workers at the Bisbee mines were forcibly deported to New Mexico.
It's tempting to surmise, given that the mineworkers were faced with a choice between harsh and underpaid work at the rock-face on the one hand and unemployment and poverty on the other, that this is the source of the phrase. The phrase began to be used frequently in US newspapers in the late 1930s, often with the alternative wording 'between a rock and a hard spot'.
A more recent example of the use of the expression, and one for which it seems gruesomely apt, is recounted in the 2010 film 127 Hours, which is based on Aron Ralston's book Between a Rock and a Hard Place. The memoir recounts the 127 hours that Ralston spent alone and trapped by a boulder in Robbers Roost, Utah, after a climbing accident in April 2003, eventually opting for the 'hard place' of freeing himself by cutting off part of his right arm.






經濟學人諷馬「困境中的鹿茸」 網友嘲:國際認證 【09:55】

新聞圖片
英國《經濟學人》報導兩岸服貿事件,以「困境中的鹿茸」調侃馬政府。(圖擷取自《經濟學人》官方網站)
〔本報訊〕太陽花學運延燒國際,英國《經濟學人》日前專訪總統馬英九,期盼釐清兩岸服務貿易協議的爭議;《經濟學人》最新一期的報導中,則以「困境中的鹿茸」為題,描繪馬英九現況,被台灣網友戲稱鹿茸已獲「國際認證」!

 《經濟學人》於最新一期的「榕園論壇」(Banyan)報導台灣的服貿議題、太陽花學運,並以「困境中的鹿茸」(On the antlers of dilemma)為大標題,諷刺馬英九的處境。

 文章評論服貿議題,先是調侃馬英九「當了6年總統,頭髮仍像中國領導人一樣,疏得相當油亮」;隨後更指出,馬政府更如同北京高層,不願正面承認策略性錯誤。另外,像是「9%總統」、「鹿茸」的失言風波等,也都被撰寫進去。

 台灣網友見狀,幽默大嘲「鹿茸已獲國際認證」!更有人諷刺,鹿茸的英文是「antlers」,不知「馬卡茸」英文怎麼念?

2014年3月27日 星期四

wraith, IN MEMORIAM, quench, quenchless,

 As I listened, with darkness and melody, shadow and sound filling all the room, I could not help remembering that the great composer who poured forth such a flood of sweetness into the world was deaf like myself. I marveled at the power of his quenchless spirit by which out of his pain he wrought such joy for others – and there I sat, feeling with my hand the magnificent symphony which broke like a sea upon the silent shores of his soul and mine.” The Auricle, Vol. II, No. 6, March 1924. American Foundation for the Blind, Helen Keller



Vallabh Sambamurthy, Editorial Notes-In Memoriam Gerry DeSanctis, Information Systems Research, Vol. 16, No. 3, Sep 2005, pp. 235-236


Much has changed since then, when Walter Scott — now a literary wraith ( ━━ n. (人の死の直前に現れる)生霊, 死霊; 幽霊; やせこけた人.)— was the dictionary’s second most-quoted English writer after Shakespeare.


So many worlds, so much to do,
So little done, such things to be,
How know I what had need of thee,
For thou wert strong as thou wert true?
The fame is quench'd that I foresaw,
The head hath miss'd an earthly wreath:
I curse not nature, no, nor death;
For nothing is that errs from law.
We pass; the path that each man trod
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds:
What fame is left for human deeds
In endless age? It rests with God.
O hollow wraith of dying fame,
Fade wholly, while the soul exults,
And self-infolds the large results
Of force that would have forged a name.


(IN MEMORIAM A. H. H by Alfred lord Tennyson)




quench

Syllabification: quench
Pronunciation: /kwenCH
 
/

verb

[with object]
  • 1Satisfy (one’s thirst) by drinking.
  • 1.1Satisfy (a desire): he only pursued her to quench an aching need
    More example sentences
    • The ladies were spotted at El Tiempo, where Sharon quenched her Tex-Mex cravings, and at Trellis Spa at the Houstonian, where they indulged in massages.
    • Human taste requires variety and something should be done to quench this yearning for variety in the desert they are wandering in.
    • Later, a trip alongside the Black Sea helped quench Sorokin's inexhaustible desire to travel.
    Synonyms

noun

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Derivatives

quenchable

adjective

quencher

noun
(chiefly Physics & Metallurgy )

quenchless

adjective
( • literary )

Origin

Old English -cwencan (in acwencan 'put out, extinguish'), of Germanic origin.

2014年3月22日 星期六

sempiternal, transponder


Op-Ed: Airplane Transponders

That was still true. His house was full of butane gas to light his sempiternal pipe, threatening an explosion.

sempiternal

Syllabification: sem·pi·ter·nal
Pronunciation: /ˌsempəˈtərnl
 
/

adjective

  • Eternal and unchanging; everlasting: his writings have the sempiternal youth of poetry
    More example sentences
    • I get the Bishop Berkeley idea that things only exist when God thinks about them; that God is not sempiternal but only exists when some people think about him is bizarre.
    • He knew they constituted the unbreakable and sempiternal circle.
    • There is throughout more than a hint of the Joycean conceit that this process is giratory and sempiternal, even though its temporal vector may be historically irreversible.

Derivatives

sempiternally

adverb

sempiternity

Pronunciation: /-ˈtərnitē/
noun

Origin

late Middle English: from Old French sempiternel or late Latin sempiternalis, from Latin sempiternus, from semper 'always' + aeternus 'eternal'.

transponder

Syllabification: tran·spon·der
Pronunciation: /tranˈspändər
 
/[名]応答機, トラポン:信号を受けると自動的に応答を送る装置.

noun

  • A device for receiving a radio signal and automatically transmitting a different signal.
    More example sentences
    • The line includes power supplies, transmitters, optical amplifiers, digital transponders, return-path receivers, fiber-node platforms and Ethernet access devices.
    • The transponder transmits this coded signal using the tuned circuit.
    • They captured these recruits as they left the hive, attached a radar transponder to them and then tracked their flight paths using harmonic radar.

Origin

1940s: blend of transmit and respond, + -er1.

2014年3月17日 星期一

inveigh, spiny , whispered or declaimed, counterclaim

 
'The story of MH370's disappearance has had all the hallmarks of a thriller over the past week: the red herrings, the misinformation, the suspicious passengers, the wider political ramifications. And yet, at the heart of all the theories and counterclaims, remains this black hole: the plane is still missing' via Comment is free
Stephanie Merritt: Malaysia Airlines' missing plane prompts the niggling thought that maybe we have no business taking to the skies
The Guardian|由 Stephanie Merritt 上傳



Tactics, Luck and Perseverance Kept Health Bill Alive
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, JEFF ZELENY and CARL HULSE
That President Obama has come within a whisper of passing historic social legislation is remarkable in itself. But the story of how he did it is not his alone.




We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

declaim

v., -claimed, -claim·ing, -claims. v.intr.
  1. To deliver a formal recitation, especially as an exercise in rhetoric or elocution.
  2. To speak loudly and vehemently; inveigh.
v.tr.
To utter or recite with rhetorical effect.
[Middle English declamen, from Latin dēclāmāre : dē-, intensive pref.; see de– + clāmāre, to cry out.]
declaimer de·claim'er n.

 whisper
n.
  1. Soft speech produced without full voice.
  2. Something uttered very softly.
  3. A secretly or surreptitiously expressed belief, rumor, or hint: whispers of scandal.
  4. A low rustling sound: the whisper of wind in the pines.

v., -pered, -per·ing, -pers. v.intr.
  1. To speak softly.
  2. To speak quietly and privately, as by way of gossip, slander, or intrigue.
  3. To make a soft rustling sound.
v.tr.
  1. To utter very softly.
  2. To say or tell privately or secretly.
[From Middle English whisperen, to whisper, from Old English hwisprian.]
whisperer whis'per·er n.
whispery whis'per·y adj.
v. intr. - 耳語, 颯颯地響, 密談
v. tr. - 低聲說
n. - 耳語, 謠傳, 密談
idioms:
  • whispering campaign 政治誹謗運動
  • whispering gallery 回音廊
━━ v. ささやく; こっそり話す[言いふらす] ((about)); (風・小川などが)さらさら音を立てる.
━━ n. ささやき; こそこそ話; うわさ; さらさらいう音.
whis・per・er ━━ n.
whispering campaign 口づてに人の名誉・地位を中傷する運動.
whispering-gallery ささやきでも遠くまで伝わるようにできている回廊.

spin・y


adj., -i·er, -i·est.
  1. Bearing or covered with spines, thorns, or similar stiff projections.
  2. Shaped like a spine.
  3. Difficult; troublesome.
spininess spin'i·ness n.
━━ a. 針[とげ]の多い[のような]; むずかしい.
spiny lobster 【動】イセエビ.



in·veigh (ĭn-vā') pronunciation
intr.v., -veighed, -veigh·ing, -veighs.
To give vent to angry disapproval; protest vehemently.

[Latin invehī, to attack with words, inveigh against, passive of invehere, to carry in : in-, in; see in-2 + vehere, to carry.]
inveigher in·veigh'er n.

to ford, ramble, a swan dive, adultery * adulterer


An incessant gambler, a serial adulterer, an experimenter with drugs: Walter Benjamin was as much an incarnation of the modern as its theoretician.

The Love Party
By GAIL COLLINS
Mark Sanford is the latest G.O.P. hopeful to do a swan dive off the adultery cliff. Perhaps the Republican Party has been too strict about the no-girlfriends-while-running-for-president rule.


 Because it was such a well-developed road, many famous persons, including the haiku master Matsuo Bashō, traveled the road. Many people preferred traveling along the Nakasendō because it did not require travelers to ford any rivers.[3][4]




Gov. Sanford Admits Affair and Explains Disappearance

Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, apologized in a rambling news conference for having an affair, ending a mystery over his disappearance.




adulterer

Syllabification: a·dul·ter·er
Pronunciation: /əˈdəltərər
 
/

noun

  • A person who commits adultery.
    More example sentences
    • By the late eighteenth century, New England law enforcers arrested few fornicators or adulterers, though premarital and extramarital sex had hardly disappeared.
    • ‘Strike the adulteress and the adulterer one hundred times’ may seem harsh but it is certainly not sexist.
    • In War and Peace, the two chief couples achieve in marriage the supreme happiness that the adulterers and other lovers cannot; their initial erotic transports fade into comfortable habit but remain the basis of a solid and lasting love.
    Synonyms

Origin

early 16th century: from the obsolete verb adulter 'commit adultery', from Latin adulterare 'debauch, corrupt', replacing an earlier Middle English noun avouterer, from Old French avoutrer 'commit adultery', likewise from Latin adulterare.

Definition of ford

noun

  • a shallow place in a river or stream allowing one to walk or drive across.

verb

[with object]
  • (of a person or vehicle) cross (a river or stream) at a shallow place.

Derivatives



fordable

adjective


fordless

adjective

Origin:

Old English; related to Dutch voorde, also to fare

ramble (TALK) Show phonetics
verb [I] DISAPPROVING
to talk or write in a confused way, often for a long time:
Sorry, I'm rambling (on) - let me get back to the point.

rambling Show phonetics
adjective
too long and confused:
a long rambling speech

ramblings Show phonetics
plural noun
long and confused speech or writing

swan dive
n.
A forward dive performed with the legs straight together, the back arched, and the arms stretched out from the sides and then brought together over the head as the diver enters the water.



Swan Dive
658 x 487 - 40k - jpg
www.jpgmag.com
Swan Dive
640 x 458 - 29k - jpg
www.loc.gov