準備好下一集‘’感動‘’中的英文學習" attention, a murder of crow ..."。
Notes of a word-watcher, Hanching Chung. A first port of call for English learning.
2023年12月31日 星期日
2023年12月27日 星期三
floodlight, illuminate, illuminati, pick a lane, leading man
Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze (left), protege of President and Communist Party Boss Mikhail Gorbachev, was a favorite of the Illuminati.
He also wanted to get people to laugh at themselves. “We are so entrenched in our corners these days talking amongst ourselves,” he lamented. “We have to get past all these hang-ups to get anywhere and make some progress.”
That instinct, so rare in a culture that judges art and its creators as good or bad, correct or immoral, elevates the movie beyond its success as an audacious and very funny bit of entertainment. What “American Fiction” does is what art should do: illuminate a universal truth about ourselves.
The “passive” sign is not studded with light-emitting diodes like so many others in Times Square, but will be lighted by 16 300-watt floodlights. It will feature custom-printed opaque vinyl sheeting bearing the red-and-white Ricoh logo. The sign will be green, nevertheless, a message “to customers, other companies and the world that resources and energy can be used creatively,” Mr. Potesky said. “The point is that there are ways of being environmentally friendly to the planet, even on a billboard.”
Illuminati (plural of Latin illuminatus, "enlightened") is a name that refers to several groups, both historical and modern, and both real and fictitious. Historically, it refers specifically to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1st, 1776. In modern times it is also used to refer to a purported conspiratorial organization which acts as a shadowy power behind the throne, allegedly controlling world affairs through present day governments and corporations, usually as a modern incarnation or continuation of the Bavarian Illuminati. In this context, Illuminati is often used in reference to a
il・lu・mi・nate
il・lu・mi・nat・ing・ly ad.
floodlight
n.
- Artificial light in an intensely bright and broad beam.
- A unit that produces a beam of intense light; a flood.
To illuminate with a floodlight.
n. - 泛光照明, 泛光燈, 強力照明v. tr. - 用泛光燈照亮
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - フラッドライト, 投光照明灯, 投光照明器
v. - 投光照明灯で照らす
stole sb thunder, Stealer, purloin, pilfered, steal a march, stealing the election
China: For years, the Thousand Talents recruitment plan attracted U.S. scientists with grants. Federal prosecutors now say China used the program to purloin sensitive technology. |
Alexander Calder
The Stainless Stealer, 1996
Stainless steel and aluminum
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Wilkie Collins gives the reader all the necessary pieces to the puzzle, but they are so cleverly disguised that his surprise ending takes the breath away. The elements that make up The Moonstone—a purloined jewel that carries a mysterious curse, an indefatigable British police sergeant, a drama of theft and murder in a spacious country house—have been repeated, in varying guises, throughout much of the avalanche of detective fiction that followed Collins's immensely popular 1868 novel.
purloined cup
Daily chart: Retail theft
Shoplifters of the world
Nov 11th 2009Laptops Steal Netbooks' Thunder
From Economist.com
Where theft hits the retail trade hardest
INDIA'S retailers suffer the highest levels of theft, according to the “Global Retail Theft Barometer” survey of 41 countries. Losses from a combination of shoplifting, worker and supplier theft, and accounting errors amounted to 3% of all retail sales. This “shrinkage” cost global retailers almost $115 billion in 2009, up by 5.9% from the previous year. Much of this increase was caused by a rise in shoplifting, particularly in America and Europe. Branded clothes and fashion accessories were the most prized items globally, with items for the car and home-improvement goods a close second. In Europe the most pilfered grocery item is luxury cooked meat.
Protests Flare in Tehran as Opposition Disputes Vote
By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHIThe streets of Iran’s capital erupted in the most intense protests in a decade as riot police officers clashed with demonstrators who accused Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of stealing the election.
Once the software was available, Foras started pushing carriers and handset makers to install it on their phones. Last year, Samsung Corp., trying to steal a march on market leader Nokia Corp., added an Irish-language handset to its line. "They're fabulous tools for us," says Mr. Mac Craith. "It facilitates the Irish language as a communications tool for every day -- not just in the classroom."
Home wrecker, husband stealer!
Definition
wrecker
- One that wrecks or destroys: a wrecker of dreams.
- One who is in the business of demolishing old buildings.
- One who dismantles cars for salvage.
- A person, vehicle, or piece of equipment employed in recovering or removing wrecks, especially a truck with a hoist and towing apparatus used in towing disabled or wrecked vehicles.
- One that salvages wrecked cargo or parts.
- One who lures a vessel to destruction, as by a display of lights on a rocky coastline, in order to plunder it.
- A plunderer.
Episode 135: A mobile mystery | |
Alice: | So how was it? |
Khalid: | I can't quite believe I'm saying this but it actually wasn't that bad! |
Alice: | Really? That dentist must have been something special. Oh, sorry Khalid, excuse me. Oh it's Paul. Hello darling. Haven't heard from you in ages. What have you been up to? |
Woman: | Who am I speaking to? |
Alice: | I beg your pardon? Who am I? Who are you, more like it? |
Woman: | No, I asked you first. |
Alice: | No, you phoned me. So you must know who I am but I don't know who you are. You're calling from Dr Paul Laver's phone. Have you stolen it? |
Woman: | If there's any stealing going on, it's you who's doing it. |
Alice: | What are you talking about? |
Woman: | Home wrecker, husband stealer! |
Alice: | Mrs L |
Gain an advantage over unexpectedly or secretly, as in Macy's stole a march on their rival department store with their Thanksgiving Day parade.
This metaphoric expression comes from medieval warfare, where a march was the distance an army could travel in a day. By quietly marching at night, a force could surprise and overtake the enemy at daybreak. Its figurative use dates from the second half of the 1700s.
Use or appropriate another's idea, especially to one's advantage, as in It was Harold's idea but they stole his thunder and turned it into a massive advertising campaign without giving him credit. This idiom comes from an actual incident in which playwright and critic John Dennis (1657-1734) devised a "thunder machine" (by rattling a sheet of tin backstage) for his play, Appius and Virginia (1709), and a few days later discovered the same device being used in a performance of Macbeth, whereupon he declared, "They steal my thunder."
steam
n.
- The vapor phase of water.
- A mist of cooling water vapor.
- Pressurized water vapor used for heating, cooking, or to provide mechanical power.
- The power produced by a machine using pressurized water vapor.
- Steam heating.
- Power; energy.
v., steamed, steam·ing, steams. v.intr.
- To produce or emit steam.
- To become or rise up as steam.
- To become misted or covered with steam.
- To move by means of steam power.
- Informal. To become very angry; fume.
To expose to steam, as in cooking.
STEALv., stole (stōl), sto·len (stō'lən), steal·ing, steals. v.tr.
- To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
- To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.
- To get or take secretly or artfully: steal a look at a diary; steal the puck from an opponent.
- To give or enjoy (a kiss) that is unexpected or unnoticed.
- To draw attention unexpectedly in (an entertainment), especially by being the outstanding performer: The magician's assistant stole the show with her comic antics.
- Baseball. To advance safely to (another base) during the delivery of a pitch, without the aid of a base hit, walk, passed ball, or wild pitch.
- To commit theft.
- To move, happen, or elapse stealthily or unobtrusively.
- Baseball. To steal a base.
- The act of stealing.
- Slang. A bargain.
- Baseball. A stolen base.
- Basketball. An act of gaining possession of the ball from an opponent.
steal (someone's) thunder
- To use, appropriate, or preempt the use of another's idea, especially to one's own advantage and without consent by the originator.

v., -fered, -fer·ing, -fers.
To steal (a small amount or item). See synonyms at steal.
v.intr.
To steal or filch.
pilferer pil'fer·er n.(pər-loin', pûr'loin')

purloin
v., -loined, -loin·ing, -loins. v.tr.
To steal, often in a violation of trust. See synonyms at steal.
v.intr.
To commit theft.