Martin Amis, whose caustic, erudite and bleakly comic novels redefined British fiction in the 1980s and ’90s with their sharp appraisal of tabloid culture and consumer excess, and whose private life made him tabloid fodder himself,
"If I die... I will simply be an inconvenient statistic."
Before all the revelations about his divorce, dubious workplace behavior and ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates was just America’s huggable billionaire techno-philanthropist.
Now the Microsoft co-founder’s philanthropic legacy is quickly unraveling. https://trib.al/sq0tfuj
As the West Coast Burns, Communities Unravel With Each Death
By Thomas Fuller and Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio
The fires have killed at least 20 people, leaving families and communities devastated up and down the West Coast.
Shaken by the bitter arguments over Brexit, Britain needs to mend its frayed social contract. Boris Johnson should now look to liberalism to do so
A TV Titan at His Peak Hits the End of His Path
By JIM RUTENBERG 37 minutes ago
The Republican convention has been a triumph for Mr. Ailes’s brand of smash-mouth and “politically incorrect” politics, but it comes as his own career unraveled.
Strauss-Kahn Re-emerges in Finance, in Russia
By ANDREW E. KRAMER 7:24 PM ET
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former chief of the International Monetary Fund whose career unraveled in a series of sex scandals, has joined a subsidiary of Rosneft.
Protests Engulf Greece as Crisis Deepens
By LIZ ALDERMAN
On Monday, Greece faced the most serious political crisis since Prime Minister Antonis Samaras took power, and his governing coalition appeared on the verge of unraveling.
The archives, at C-SpanVideo.org, cover 23 years of history and five presidential administrations and are sure to provide new fodder for pundits and politicians alike. The network will formally announce the completion of the C-Span Video Library on Wednesday.
300,000 Apply for 3,300 Obama Jobs By NEIL A. LEWIS
The excitement about an Obama administration has fueled the record number of applicants, although the unraveling economy may be adding its own boost.
Yet recently, based on Ford’s and the E.P.A.’s own recent follow-up studies of the soil and groundwater in Upper Ringwood, those conclusions unraveled and became fodder in what environmental experts say is now among the messiest industrial cleanup efforts in Superfund’s 27-year history. (July 29, 2007
Decades After a Plant Closes, Waste Remains
By RON STODGHILL)
Crude tactics
BP’s boss, Tony Hayward, tries to unravel the curious goings-on at TNK-BP in Russia
C. K. Williams, the poet known for his “long, unraveled lines,” died yesterday at seventy-eight.
Cameron to Seek German Support on European Reform
By ALAN COWELL 5:24 AM ET
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain is traveling on Friday to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, resuming a diplomatic overture to mend his country’s frayed ties with the European Union.
scarper (SKAHR-puhr)
verb intr.: To flee, especially without paying one's bills.
Etymology
The term is a Briticism and its origin isn't confirmed. It's probably from Italian scappare (to escape), influenced by Cockney rhyming slang Scapa Flow, to go. Scapa Flow is an area of water off the northern coast of Scotland, in the Orkney Islands. It was the main British naval base during WW I & II, known for the scuttling of the German fleet.
Usage
"I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major's Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism." — J.K. Rowling; The Single Mother's Manifesto; The Times (London, UK); Apr 14, 2010. www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7096786.ece.
thread·bare (thrĕd'bâr')
adj.
- Having the nap worn down so that the filling or warp threads show through; frayed or shabby: threadbare rugs.
- Wearing old, shabby clothing.
- Overused to the point of being worn out; hackneyed: threadbare excuses.
to cushion a falling person; to lessen the impact of a falling person. When the little boy fell out of the window, the bushes broke his fall. The old lady slipped on the ice, but a snowbank broke her fall.
frayed
reelfrayed
adjective
verb
go on (HAPPEN) phrasal verb
to happen:
I'm sure we never hear about a lot of what goes on in government.
This war has been going on for years.
goings-on
plural noun
strange, unusual, amusing or unsuitable events or activities:
There've been a lot of strange/odd goings-on in that house recently.
Follow up「跟摧」，「進度管理」、「成果檢討」。
施政楷先生文章中的一些詞用原文，表示當時還找不到好的或共通翻譯。譬如說，「follow-up是推行新制度的靈魂」。follow-up現在很多人採用「跟摧」。
其實，施先生先另外一篇「Systematic Approach是實施工業工程成功的保證」中採用「成果檢討」，也相當好，甚至更好。
(參考
『劉振編『品質管制學名詞增訂版』（台北：中華民國品質管制學會，1979）。日本翻譯為「進度管理」
劉振老師編的『施政楷先生品質管制遺作選集』（台北；中華民國民國品質管制學會，1983年）)
英文的用法請參考：
follow sth up phrasal verb(USALSO follow up onsth)to find out more about something, or take further action connected withit:The idea sounded interesting and I decided to follow it up.Hedecided to follow up on his initial research and write abook.
follow-up noun[C]This meeting is a follow-up to the one we had last month. (fromCambridgeAdvanced Learner's Dictionary)
2006年12月西門子公司的財務醜聞--行賄等 之追蹤稽查
Siemens's CEO is hopeful a follow-up audit will reduce the financial scope of alleged fraud being investigated at the firm.
unravel
verb -ll- or US USUALLY -l-
1 [I or T] If a piece of woollen or woven cloth, a knot, or a mass of thread unravels, it separates into a single thread, and if you unravel it, you separate it into a single thread:
You'd better mend that hole before the whole sweater starts to unravel.
I had to unravel one of the sleeves because I realised I'd knitted it too small.
2 [I or T] If you unravel a mysterious, unknown or complicated subject, you make it known or understood, and if it unravels, it become known or understood:
We've got a long way to go before we unravel the secrets of genetics.
3 [I; T usually passive] If a process or achievement that was slow and complicated unravels or is unravelled, it is destroyed:
As talks between the leaders broke down, several months of careful diplomacy were unravelled.
verb -ll- or US USUALLY -l-
1 [I or T] If a piece of woollen or woven cloth, a knot, or a mass of thread unravels, it separates into a single thread, and if you unravel it, you separate it into a single thread:
You'd better mend that hole before the whole sweater starts to unravel.
I had to unravel one of the sleeves because I realised I'd knitted it too small.
2 [I or T] If you unravel a mysterious, unknown or complicated subject, you make it known or understood, and if it unravels, it become known or understood:
We've got a long way to go before we unravel the secrets of genetics.
3 [I; T usually passive] If a process or achievement that was slow and complicated unravels or is unravelled, it is destroyed:
As talks between the leaders broke down, several months of careful diplomacy were unravelled.
unravel
ʌnˈrav(ə)l/
verb
past tense: unraveled; past participle: unraveled
- 2.investigate and solve or explain (something complicated or puzzling).
- "they were attempting to unravel the cause of death"
un・ravel
━━ vt. （もつれた糸などを）ほどく; 解明する, （物語の筋などを）解決させる; 〔話〕 破綻させる.
━━ vi. 解ける, ほどける.
━━ vi. 解ける, ほどける.
smash-mouth
ADJECTIVE
North American informal
fodder
noun [U]
1 food that is given to cows, horses and other farm animals
2 people or things that are useful for the stated purpose:
Politicians are always good fodder for comedians (= they make jokes about them).
See cannon fodder.
noun [U]
1 food that is given to cows, horses and other farm animals
2 people or things that are useful for the stated purpose:
Politicians are always good fodder for comedians (= they make jokes about them).
See cannon fodder.
A tabloid is a newspaper that has small pages, short articles, and lots of photographs.
loose cannon
n. Slang
One that is uncontrolled and therefore poses danger: "[His] bloopers in the White House seem to make him . . . a political loose cannon" (Tom Morgenthau).
cannon fodder
noun
- soldiers regarded merely as material to be expended in war."they ended up serving as cannon fodder in Vietnam"
blooper
(blū'pər)
n.
- Informal. A clumsy mistake, especially one made in public; a faux pas.
- Baseball.
- A weakly hit ball that carries just beyond the infield.
- A high pitch that is lobbed to the batter.
[From BLOOP, a high-pitched howl on the radio caused by interference (of imitative origin), and imitative of the sound made by hitting a ball weakly.]
Loose cannon
Meaning
An unpredictable person or thing, liable to cause damage if not kept in check by others.
Origin
Between the 17th and 19th centuries wooden warships carried cannon as their primary offensive weapons. In order to avoid damage from their enormous recoil when fired they were mounted on rollers and secured with rope. A loose cannon was just what it sounds like, that is, a cannon that had become free of its restraints and was rolling dangerously about the deck.
As with many nautical phrases, the use of 'loose cannon' owes something to the imagination as no evidence has come to light to indicate that the phrase was used by sailors in the days that ships actually carried cannon. The imagination in question belonged to Victor Hugo who set the scene in the novel Ninety Three, 1874. A translation of the French original describes cannon being tossed about following a violent incident onboard ship:
"The carronade, hurled forward by the pitching, dashed into this knot of men, and crushed four at the first blow; then, flung back and shot out anew by the rolling, it cut in two a fifth poor fellow... The enormous cannon was left alone. She was given up to herself. She was her own mistress, and mistress of the vessel. She could do what she willed with both."
Henry Kingsley picked up this reference in his novel Number Seventeen, 1875, in which he made the first use of the term 'loose cannon' in English:
"At once, of course, the ship was in the trough of the sea, a more fearfully dangerous engine of destruction than Mr. Victor Hugo’s celebrated loose cannon."
The earliest figurative use of 'loose cannon' in print that I can find is from The Galveston Daily News, December 1889:
The negro vote in the south is a unit now mainly because it is opposed by the combined white vote. It would in no event become, as Mr. Grady once said, "a loose cannon in a storm-tossed ship."
The phrase might have dwindled into obscurity in the 20th century but for the intervention of the US president Theodore Roosevelt. William White was a noted US journalist and politician around the turn of the 20th century and was a close friend of Roosevelt. White's Autobiography, published soon after his death in 1944 contained the following reminiscence:
He [Roosevelt] said: "I don't want to be the old cannon loose on the deck in the storm".
As I suggested, nautical terms are rife with romanticism and another term in which items are imagined to be rolling about the deck of a sailing ship (incorrectly in this case) is 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'.
沒有留言:
張貼留言