Prose quality varies, but each memoirist wields a formidable talent for understatement. In “Reflections in a Silver Spoon,” Paul Mellon laments a period during the 1930s when he was forced to stop vacationing aboard luxury German cruise ships owing to Adolf Hitler’s “completely outrageous” behavior. A car crash that nearly killed the author is mentioned only glancingly — as an incident in which Mellon’s vehicle somehow “left the road.”
The idea that American audiences will not engage with a production if it is in a language other than English is increasingly implausible
China’s constitution says the president “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms”. The Communist Party’s central committee has just voted to change that
"For the leave campaigners, it must weigh on their conscience that their slogans have been easily adopted by the far right. That’s the trouble with words, you never know whose mouth they have been in."
He revolutionized philosophy twice, fought with shocking bravery in World War I, inspired a host of memoirs by people who knew him only glancingly—and for six years taught elementary school in the mountains of rural Austria.
Writing in a Nonstop World
By QUENTIN HARDY
Our interactions with computers have gone from brief and long to
frequent and glancing. That difference is changing how we write, how we
relate to each other, and how we build things. What happens with the
interactions become nonstop?
That doesn't settle a bar bet along the lines of "Is English hard to learn?" But any topic worthy of a good long argument—"Who's the greatest boxer of all time?" "'Dark Side of the Moon' or 'The Wall'?"—should have that element of taste and subjectivity to keep it fun.
If the strength of Seattle’s office market could be chalked up to one company, it would be Amazon.
Last year, the online
retailer was responsible for the city’s biggest deal, its largest lease
and the purchase of the only large chunk of downtown land to come on the
market in decades. Amazon bought its 1.8-million-square-foot
headquarters last month from Vulcan Real Estate for $1.16 billion, the
biggest office sale nationwide and a bold departure for a company that
had been content to rent space until last year.
Scripted by John Hodge, the screenwriter of Mr Boyle’s first three films, it is hollow, superficial and proudly implausible. But as long as you don’t expect more than a glancing resemblance to reality, you can enjoy the director’s customary dynamism.
Apple Sets New Bar
Apple reported its first quarterly results since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs, chalking up new sales and profit records based on runaway holiday demand for the company's iPhones and iPad tablet device.
J.C. Penney Gives Board Seats to Roth and Ackman Chalk up another victory for William A. Ackman. J.C. Penney named the hedge fund manager and Steven Roth of Vornado Realty Trust to its board, several months after the two investors disclosed buying big stakes in the retailer.
《中英對照讀新聞》Jane Austen ’died from arsenic poisoning’ 珍奧斯汀死於砒霜中毒
◎陳維真
Almost 200 years after she died, Jane Austen’s early death at the age of just 41 has been attributed to many things, from cancer to Addison’s disease. Now sleuthing from a crime novelist has uncovered a new possibility： arsenic poisoning.
珍奧斯汀過世200年後，她41歲就英年早逝的原因，從癌症到愛迪生氏病眾說紛紜。現在犯罪小說家調查後發現新的可能：砒霜中毒。
Author Lindsay Ashford moved to Austen’s village of Chawton three years ago. She soon became engrossed in old volumes of Austen’s letters, and one morning spotted a sentence Austen wrote just a few months before she died："I am considerably better now and am recovering my looks a little, which have been bad enough, black and white and every wrong colour."
作家琳賽艾希佛德3年前搬到奧斯汀住的小鎮喬頓。奧斯汀大量的舊信件馬上就讓她沉迷其中，有一天早上，她發現奧斯汀在生前幾個月寫的一句話：「我現在好多了，外貌也稍微恢復。之前狀況很糟，又黑又白的，什麼不該出現的顏色都出現了。」
Having researched modern forensic techniques and poisons for her crime novels, Ashford immediately realised the symptoms could be ascribed to arsenic poisoning, which can cause "raindrop" pigmentation, where patches of skin go brown or black, and other areas go white.
艾希佛德為了自己的犯罪小說研究過現代法醫技術與毒藥，立刻發現奧斯汀的症狀可歸因於砒霜中毒，導致「雨滴」般的色素狀病變，讓皮膚有的呈現塊狀的褐色或黑色，有的則是白色。
Professor Janet Todd, editor for the Cambridge edition of Jane Austen, said that murder was implausible. "I doubt very much she would have been poisoned intentionally. I think it’s very unlikely. But the possibility she had arsenic for rheumatism, say, is quite likely."
劍橋版奧斯汀小說集的編輯珍娜陶德表示，珍奧斯汀的死因若是謀殺不太合理。「我非常懷疑她是遭人蓄意毒殺，我覺得這不太可能。不過她如果因為風濕而服用砒霜，可能性就很大。」
新聞辭典
arsenic
NOUN
[ MASS NOUN]
Arsenic compounds (and their poisonous properties) have been known since ancient times, and themetallic form was isolated in the Middle Ages. Arsenic occurs naturally in orpiment, realgar, and otherminerals, and rarely as the free element. Arsenic is used in semiconductors and some specialized alloys; its toxic compounds are widely used as herbicides and pesticides.
ADJECTIVE
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting yellow orpiment, arsenic sulphide): via Old French from Latinarsenicum, from Greek arsenikon 'yellow orpiment', identified with arsenikos 'male', but in fact from Arabic al-zarnīḵ 'the orpiment', based on Persian zar 'gold'.
More
- The chemical element arsenic is a brittle steel-grey substance with many highly poisonous compounds, but its root word means ‘gold’. In English the word first referred to a compound of arsenic called arsenic sulphide or yellow orpiment, which was used as a dye and artist's pigment. The word comes from Greek arsenikon, from Arabic az-zarnīk, the root of which was Persian zar ‘gold’.
engross：動詞，使人全神貫注、吸引。例句：He’s engrossed in his work.（他專心工作。）
ascribe to：歸因於…、認為…是。例句：He ascribed his success to hard work.（他把自己的成就歸功於自己的努力。）
implausible[im・plau・si・ble]
- 発音記号[implɔ'ːzəbl]
implausible：形容詞，不合情理，難以置信。例句：Though her alibi seemed implausible, it in fact turned out to be true.（儘管她的不在場證明看似不合情理，但結果卻是真的。）
ADJECTIVE
- (of an argument or statement) not seeming reasonable or probable; failing to convince.‘this is a blatantly implausible claim’
ascribe
(ə-skrīb')
tr.v., -cribed, -crib·ing, -cribes.
- To attribute to a specified cause, source, or origin: "Other people ascribe his exclusion from the canon to an unsubtle form of racism" (Daniel Pinchbeck). See synonyms at attribute.
- To assign as a quality or characteristic: was quick to ascribe jealousy to her critics.
[Middle English ascriben, from Old French ascrivre, from Latin ascrībere : ad-, ad- + scrībere, to write.]
ascribable a·scrib'a·ble adj.chalk up
1. Score or earn, as in She chalked up enough points to be seeded first in the tournament. This term alludes to recording accounts (and later, scores) in chalk on a slate. [c. 1700]
2. Credit or ascribe, as They chalked their success up to experience. [First half of 1900s]
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