1. And it is an activity only of humans.
And conversation is an activity found only among human beings.
2. Conversation is not for making a point.
Conversation is not for persuading others to accept our ideas or points of views.
3. In fact, the best conversationalists are those who are prepared to lose.
In fact , people who are good at conversation will not argue to win or force others to accept his ideas.
4. Bar friends are not deeply involved in each other’s lives.
People who meet each other for a drink in the bar of a pub are not close friends for they are not deeply absorbed in each other’s private lives.
5. ....it could still go ignorantly on ...
The conversation could go on without anybody knowing who was right or wrong.
6. There are cattle in the fields ,but we sit down to beef.
These animals are called cattle when they are alive and feed in the fields , but when we sit
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down at the table to eat, we call their meet beef.
7. The new ruling class had built a cultural barrier against him by building their French against his own language.
The new ruling class by using French instead of English made it hard for the English to accept or absorb the culture of the rulers.
8. English had come royally into its own.
English received proper recognition and was used by the King once more.
9. The phrase has always been used a little pejoratively and even facetiously by the lower classes.
The phrase , the King’s English ,has always been used disrespectfully and jokingly by the lower classes.(The working people often mock the proper and formal language of the educated people.)
10. The rebellion against a cultural dominance is still there.
As the early Saxon peasants , the working people still have a spirit of opposition to the cultural authority of the ruling class.
11. There is always a great danger that “ words will harden into things for us. “
There is always a great danger , as Carlyle put it , that we might forget that words are
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only symbols and take them for things they are supposed to represent.
a. However intricate the ways in which animals communicate with each other, they do not indulge in anything that deserves the name of conversation.
不管动物之间的交流方式多么复杂，它们不能参与到称得上是交谈的任何活动中。
b. Argument may often be a part of it, but the purpose of the argument is not to convince. There is no winning in conversation.
争论会经常出现于交谈中，但争论的目的不是为了说服。交谈中没有胜负之说。
c. Perhaps it is because of my upbringing in English pubs that I think bar conversation has a charm of its own.
或许我从小就混迹于英国酒吧缘故，我认为酒吧里的闲聊别有韵味。
d. I do not remember what made one of our companions say it ---she clearly had not come into the bar to say it , it was not something that was pressing on her mind---but her remark fell quite naturally into the talk.
我不记得是什么使得我的一个同伴说起它来的---她显然不是来酒吧说这个的，这不是她事先想好的话题----但她的话相当自然地插入到了交谈中。
e. There is always resistance in the lower classes to any attempt by an upper class to lay down rules for “English as it should be spoken .”
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下层社会总会抵制上层社会企图给“标准英语”制定得规则。
f. Words are not themselves a reality ,but only representations of it ,and the King’s English ,like the Anglo-French of the Normans , is a class representation of reality.
词语本身并不是现实。正如诺曼底人讲的英格鲁--法语一样，标准英语是一个阶层用来表达现实的形式。
g. Perhaps it is worth trying to speak it, but it should not be laid down as an edict , and made immune to change from below.
或许试着去说它还是值得的，但是它不能被制定成法令，从而拒绝来自下层的变化。
h. There is no worse conversationalist than the one who punctuates his words as he speaks as if he were writing , or even who tries to use words as if he were composing a piece of prose for print.
如果一个人说出的话就像写出来的文字，或者试图使用那些创作书面散文的文字，那么没有比这样的交谈者更糟糕的了。
i. When E.M. Forster writes of “ the sinister corridor of our age,” we sit up at the vividness of the phrase , the force and even terror in the image.
当E.M.福斯特写到“我们这个时代的险恶长廊”时，其用语之生动及由其所产生的生动有力，甚至可怖的形象苦令我们拍案叫绝。
j. There would have been no conversation the other evening if we had been able to
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settle at once the meeting of “ the King’s English.”
那天晚上如果我们立刻解决了“标准英语”的含义，就不会有第二天晚上的谈话了。
Lesson Two
1. The burying-ground is merely a huge waste of hummocky earth, like a derelict building-lot.
The buring-ground is nothing more than a huge piece of wasteland full of mounds of earth looking like a deserted and abandoned piece of land on which a building was going to be put up.
2. All colonial empires are in reality founded upon that fact.
All the imperialists build up their empires by treating the people in the colonies like animals (by not treating the people in the colonies as human beings).
3. They rise out of the earth, they sweat and starve for a few years, and then they sink back into the nameless mounds of the graveyard.
They are born. Then for a few years they work, toil and starve. Finally they die and are buried in graves without a name.
4. A carpenter sits cross-legged at a prehistoric lathe, turning chair-legs at lightning speed.
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Sitting with his legs crossed and using a very old-fashioned lathe, a carpenter quickly gives a round shape to the chair-legs he is making.
5. Instantly, from the dark holes all round, there was a frenzied rush of Jews .
Immediately from their dark hole-like cells everywhere a great number of Jews rushed out wildly excited.
6. every one of them looks on a cigarette as a more or less impossible luxury
Every one of these poor Jews looked on the cigarette as a piece of luxury which they could not possibly afford.
7. Still, a white skin is always fairly conspicuous.
However, a white-skinned European is always quite noticeable.
8. In a tropical landscape one's eye takes in everything except the human beings.
If you take a look at the natural scenery in a tropical region, you see everything but the human beings.
9. No one would think of running cheap trips to the Distressed Areas.
No one would think of organizing cheap trips for the tourists to visit the poor slum areas
10. for nine-tenths of the people the reality of life is an endless, backbreaking struggle to
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wring a little food out of an eroded soil.
Life is very hard for ninety percent of the people．With hard backbreaking toil they can produce a little food on the poor soil．
11. She accepted her status as an old woman, that is to say as a beast of burden.
She took it for granted that as an old woman she was the lowest in the community，that。she was only fit for doing heavy work like an animal．
12. People with brown skins are next door to invisible.
People with brown skins are almost invisible．
13. Their splendid bodies were hidden in reach-me-down khaki uniforms.
The Senegales soldiers were wearing ready—made khaki uniforms which hid their beautiful well—built bodies．
14. How long before they turn their guns in the other direction?
How much longer before they turn their guns around and attack us?。
15. Every white man there had this thought stowed somewhere or other in his mind.
Every white man there had this thought hidden somewhere or other in his mind．
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When you walk through a town like this - two hundred thousand inhabitants of whom at least twenty thousand own literally nothing except the rags they stand up in - when you see how the people live, and still more how easily they die, it is always difficult to believe that you are walking among human beings.
当你穿行于这样的城镇中—20万居民中至少有2万人除了一身勉强蔽体的破衣烂衫外，一无所有——当你看到这些人是如何生活，又如何轻易死亡时，你总是很难相信自己是行走在人类之中。
When you go through the Jewish quarters you gather some idea of what the medieval ghettoes were probably like.
当你穿过犹太人聚居区时，你就会了解中世纪的贫民区大概是个什么样子。
Many of the streets are a good deal less than six feet wide, the houses are completely windowless, and sore-eyed children cluster everywhere i unbelievable numbers, like clouds of flies.
很多街道远远不足6英尺宽，房屋根本没有窗户，眼睛肿痛的孩子成群结队 ，随处可见，像成群的苍蝇，数也数不清。
Even a blind man somewhere at the back of one of the booths heard a rumour of cigarettes and came crawling out, groping in the air with his hand.
甚至在后面的窝棚里的一个盲人听到要烟的吵嚷声也爬了出来，伸手在空中乱摸。
5.Ah, that’s only for show! They’re all money lenders really.
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噢！那只不过是装样子罢了。实际上他们都是些放贷获利的人。
6.In just the same way, a couple of hundred years ago, poor old women used to be burned for witchcraft when they could not even work enough magic to get themselves a square meal.
颇为相似的是，几百年前，有些可怜的老妇人常常被当成巫婆活活烧死，但事实上她们连为自己变出一顿像样的饭菜的巫术都没有。
7.It takes in the dried-up soil, the prickly pear, the palm tree and the distant mountain, but it always misses the peasant hoeing at his patch.
那干巴巴的土地，仙人掌，棕榈树和远方的山岭被尽收眼底，但在地里耕作的农民却往往没人看见。
8.Most of Morocco is so desolate that no wild animal bigger than a hare can live on it.
摩洛哥大部分土地都很荒凉，以至于那里生存的最大的野生动物就是野兔。
9.Except for a day or two after the rare rainstorms there is never enough water.
除了难得的暴雨之后的一两天之外，这里总是缺水。
10.It seems to be generally the case in primitive communities that the women, when they get beyond a certain age, shrink to the size of children.
在原始社会里，妇女超过了一定的年纪身材便会萎缩得如孩子般大小，这似乎是一个普遍现象。
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Lesson Three
1. And yet the same revolutionary belief for which our forebears fought is still at issue around the globe....
Our ancestors fought a revolutionary war to claim all men were created equal and God had endowed them with certain unalienable rights which no state or ruler could take away from them. However ,today this issue has not yet been settled in many countries around the world .
2. This much we pledge--- and more.
This much we promise to do and we promise to do more.
3. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures.
United and working together we can accomplish a lot of things in a large number of joint undertakings.
4. ....our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace...
The United Nations is our last and best hope of survival in an age where the instruments of war have far surpassed the instruments of peace.
5. ...to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.
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We pledge to help the United Nations enlarge the area in which its authority and mandate would continue to be in force.
6. ....before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.
Before the terrible forces of destruction, which atomic bombs can now release,overwhelm mankind, which may be planned or brought about by an accident
7. ....yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the band of mankind’s final war.
Yet both groups of nations are attempting to change as quickly as possible this uncertain balance of terrible military power that restrains each group from launching mankind;s final war.
8. So let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness...
So let us start once again , bearing in mind that being polite is not a sign of weakness.
9. Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors.
Let both sides try to call forth the wonderful things that science can do for mankind instead of the frightful things it can do.
10. ....each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its
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national loyalty.
Americans of every generation have been called upon to prove their loyalty to their country by frighting and dying for their country’s cause.
11. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love...
Let us lead the country we love , knowing our sure reward will be a good conscience and history will finally judge whether we have done our task well or not.
We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning , signifying renewal as well as change.
我们今天庆祝的不是一个政党的胜利，而是一个自由的盛会，它代表这一个时代的结束和另一个时代的开端，它代表着重生和改变。
Let the word go forth from this time and place , to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century,tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of these human rights to which this nation has always been committed , and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
此时此地我向朋友和敌人宣布：火炬已经传递给了新一代的美国人，他们出生于本世纪，经受过战争的洗礼，受过冷峻而苦涩的和平的考验，以我们的古代遗产为傲，不愿意见到或者允许这些人权被逐渐取消。这个国家一直致力于维护这些人权，如今我们在国内和全世界也在维护这些人权。
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Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price , bear any burden, meet any hardship , support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
让世界上每一个希望我们成功或窘迫的国家知道：我们将不惜任何代价，承担任何责任，应对任何艰难，支持一切朋友，反对一切敌人，以确保自由的幸存和成功。
United , there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures.
只要我们团结起来，我们将在大量的合作型事业中战无不胜。
Divided, there is little we can do ,for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.
如果分裂开来，我们将一事无成，因为我们不能在争执中去应对巨大的挑战，我们的关系会崩裂。
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
如果自由的社会不能帮助多数穷人，它就不能拯救少数的富人。
We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.
我们不敢以软弱来诱惑它们。因为只有当我们的军备力量无疑是非常充足的时候，我们才能确保不会使用武力。
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In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine,will rest the final success or failure of our course.
我们的同胞们，我们事业成败的关键与其说掌握在我的手中，不如说掌握在你们的手中。
Now the trumpet summons us again----not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle , though embattled we are; but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle , year in and year out , “rejoicing in hope , patient in tribulation,” a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny , poverty disease and war itself.
现在号角再次向我们吹响----不是号召我们扛起武器，虽然我们需要武器；不是号召我们去参加战斗，虽然我们严阵以待；而是号召我们为迎接黎明而肩负起漫长斗争的责任，年复一年，”从希望中得到欢乐，在苦难中保持坚韧“， 去反对人类共同的敌人：专制、贫困、疾病和战争本身
With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds,let us go forth to lead the land we love , asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.
良心是我们唯一可靠的报酬，历史是我们行为的最终裁判，让我们出发去领导我们所热爱的国家，祈求上帝的祝福和帮助，但是要明白上帝在人间的工作毕竟就是我们自己的工作。
Lesson Four
1. A nice enough young fellow, you understand ,but nothing upstairs.
He is a nice enough young fellow,you know , but he is empty-headed.
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2. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason.
A passing fashion or craze ,in my opinion, shows a complete lack of reason.
3. I should have known they’d come back when the Charleston came back.
I should have known that raccoon coats would come back to fashion when the Charleston dance, which was popular in the 1920s,came back.
4. “All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where ‘ve you been?”
All the important and fashionable men on campus are wearing them. How come you don’t know?
5. My brain , that precision instrument, slipped into high gear.
My brain, which is precision instrument, began to work at high speed.
6. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.
Except for one thing(intelligence)Polly had all the other requirements.
7. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt sure that time would supply the lack.
She was not as beautiful as those girls in posters but I felt sure she would become beautiful enough after some time.
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8. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction.
In fact, she went in the opposite direction,that is , she was not intelligent but rather stupid.
9. “ In other words ,if you were out of the picture,the field would be open. Is that right?”
If you were no longer involved with her, others would be free to compete to get her as a girlfriend.
10. Back and forth his head swiveled , desire waxing, resolution waning.
His head turned back and forth (looking at the coat and then looking away from the coat). Every time he looked his desire for the coat grew stronger and his resolution not to abandon Polly became weaker.
11. This loomed as a project of no small dimensions...
To teach her to think seemed to be a rather big task.
12. Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope ,but I decided to give it one more try.
One must admit the outcome did not look very hopeful, but I decided to try one more time.
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13. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear.
There is a limit to what any human being can bear .
14. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein , and my monster had me by the throat.
I planned to be Pygmalion, to fashion an ideal wife for myself, but I turned out to be Frankenstein because Polly ultimately rejected me and ruined my plan.
15. Frantically I fought back the tide of panic surging through me .
Desperately I tried to stop the feeling of panic which was overwhelming me.
My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, as precise as chemist’s scales. As penetrating as a scalpel.
我的大脑如发电机一样强大，像化学家的平一样精确，像手术刀一样锋利。
To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender yourself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing it---this , to me , is the acme od mindlessness.
被卷入每一股新来的时尚之中，因为其他人都是这样做，自己也进去傻干---这对于我而言，简直就是愚蠢至极。
Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature.
我强调一下我渴望得到这个妙龄少女不是情感的驱动使然。
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It is , after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.
毕竟，与使这个丑陋而聪明的女孩变漂亮相比，使一个美丽的愚笨的女孩变得聪明要容易得多。
He was a torn man, First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely.
他神情不安。先是带着面包店橱窗旁边的流浪儿的那种神情盯着大衣。然后转过头，坚定地咬紧牙关。
Maybe somewhere is the extinct crater of her mind , a few embers still smoldered.
说不定她头脑中死火山口某处还有闷燃的余烬。
After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have briefs, to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are building a house.
毕竟，外科医生在做手术时有X 光线作为指导，律师在审判时有辩护状作为指导，木匠在建造房子的时候有蓝图作为指导。
If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitch blend,the world today would not know about radium.
如果居里夫人没有把一张相片底片放在装有沥青铀矿的抽屉了，今天的世人就不会知道镭了。
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Suddenly, a glimmer of intelligence ----the first I had seen--- came into her eyes.
突然，一道智慧的灵光----第一次看见---在她的眼中闪现。
Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin,I begin a long, patient review of all I had told her.
知道波利并不完全是个白痴，我感到很振奋，于是我开始把给她讲过的一切时间、耐心地复习了一遍。
Lesson Five
1. The slighted mention of the decade brings nostalgic recollections to the middle-aged...
At the very mention of this postwar period ,middle-aged people begin to think about it longingly.
2. The rejection of Victorian gentility was , in any case ,inevitable .
In any case,an American could not avoid casting aside middle-class respectability and affected refinement.
3. The war acted merely as a catalytic agent in this breakdown of the Victorian social structure...
The war only helped to speed up the breakdown of the Victorian social structure.
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4. ...it was tempted ,in America at least, to escape its responsibilities and retreat behind an air of naughty alcoholic sophistication...
In America at least,the young people were strongly inclined to shirk their responsibilities. They pretended to be worldly-wise, drinking and behaving naughtily.
5. Prohibition afforded the young the additional opportunity of making their pleasures illicit...
The young found greater pleasure in drinking because Prohibition, by making drinking unlawful,added a sense of adventure.
6. ...our young men began to enlist under foreign flags.
Our young men joined the armies of foreign countries to fight in the war.
7. ....they “wanted to get into the fun before the whole thing turned belly up.”
The young wanted to take part in the glorious adventure before the whole ended.
8. ...they had outgrown towns and families...
These young people could no longer adapt themselves to lives in their hometowns or their families.
9. ...the returning veteran also had to face the sodden,Napoleonic cynicism of Versailles,the hypocritical do-goodism of Prohibition...
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The returning veteran also had to face the stupid cynicism of the victorious allies in Versailles who acted as cynically as Napoleon did,and to face Prohibition which the lawmakers hypocritically assumed would do good to the people.
10. Something in the tension-ridden youth of America had to “give”...
(Under all this force and pressure)something in the youth of America,who were already very tense ,had to break down.
11. ...it was only natural that hopeful young writers , their minds and pens inflamed against war, Babbittry, and “Puritanical” gentility, should flock to the traditional artistic center...
It was only natural that hopeful young writers ,whose minds and writings were full of violent anger against war, Babbittry,and “Puritanical” gentility,should come in largen numbers to live in Greenwich Village, the traditional artistic center.
12. Each town had its “fast”set which prided itself on itself on its unconventionality...
Each town was proud that it had a group of wild ,reckless people,who lived unconventional lives.
No aspect of life in the Twenties has been more commented upon and sensationally romanticized than the so-called Revolt of the Younger Generation.
在20世纪生活的方方面面中，所谓的青年一代的反抗是人们评论最多和渲染最严重的。
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The answers to such inquiries must of necessity be “yes”and
“no”---”yes”because the business of growing up is always accompanied by irresponsible ,and immoral in social behavior at the time can now be seen in perspective as being something considerably less sensational than the degeneration of our jazz mad youth
对这些问题必然有两种答复，“是”或者“不是”----回答“是”，是因为在成长的过程中，总会存在青年一代的问题；回答“不是”，是因为当时看上去那么狂野、不负责和不道德的行为，以今天的角度来看的话，远远比不上迷恋爵士乐的青年的堕落行为那样耸人听闻。
War or no war ,as the generations passed , it became increasingly difficult for our young people to accept standards of behavior that bore no relationship to the bustling business medium in which they were expected to battle for success.
无论是否会发生战争，随着时代的变迁，让我们的年轻人接受与喧嚣的商业社会格格不入的行为准则越来越难，在当时商业化社会中，他们被期望为了成功而战。
The faddishness , the wild spending of money on transitory pleasures and momentary novelties, the hectic air of gaiety, the experimentation is sensation----sex, drug, alcohol, perversions---were all part of the pattern of escape , an escape made possible by a general prosperity and a post-war fatigue with politics, economic restrictions, and international responsibilities.
追求时髦，为了获得短暂的快乐和瞬间的新奇而挥霍钱财，纵情狂欢，寻求感官刺激---性、毒品、酒精、性变态---这些都是逃避的表现，普遍的繁荣、战后对政治、经济限制和国际责任的厌倦使得这种逃避成为可能。
Meanwhile ,the true intellectuals were far from flattered.
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同事，真正的知识分子完全没有感到受宠若惊。
Flaming diatribes poured from their pens denouncing the materialism and what they considered to be the cultural boobery of our society.
激昂的不满从他们的作品中喷涌而出，他们的作品谴责物质主义以及他们认为的我们社会中的文化愚人。
It was in their defiant, but generally short-lived ,European expatriation that our leading writers of the Twenties learned to think of themselves, in the words of Gertrude Stein, as the “lost generation” .
正是在他们那反抗性的，总的来说短期的旅居欧洲期间，我们20世纪的主要作家认识到自己，用格特鲁德.斯泰因的话说，就是“迷惘的一代”。
In no sense a movement in itself, the “lost generation” attitude nevertheless acted as a common denominator of the writing of the times.
迷惘的一代本身并不是一场运动，但是其态度成了当时作品的共同特征。
It was shocked ,uprooted for a time, bitter , critical ,rebellions, iconoclastic, experimental , often absurd, more often misdirected --but never” lost”.
他们一度感到震惊、孤独无依、痛苦、爱挑剔、叛逆、打破旧习俗、爱尝试，往往有些荒唐，更常常接近胡闹---但从未“迷惘过”。
The intellectuals of the Twenties, the “sad young men” as Fascist Fitzgerald called
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them, cursed their luck but didn’t die; escaped but voluntarily returned ; flayed the Babbitts but loved their country, and in so doing gave the nation the liveliest ,freshest , most stimulation writing in its literary experience.
20年代的知识分子被F.斯科特.菲茨杰拉德称为“悲哀的青年一代”，他们诅咒运气，但没有因此消亡；他们逃避，但又自愿地返回；他们猛烈抨击市侩，但却热爱自己的国家。因此这个国家创作出了最具有生命，最令人耳目一新和最有刺激性的文学作品。
Lesson Six
1. Nowadays New York is out of phase with American taste...
Nowadays New Yorkers can’t understand nor follow the taste of the American people and often disagree with American politics.
2. New York even prides itself on being a holdout from prevailing American trends...
New York is proud that it is a city that resists the prevailing fashion or styles of America and that it remains to be a place where people can escape uniformity.
3. ...sitcoms cloned and canned in Hollywood, and the Johnny Carson show live, preempt the airways from California...
Situation comedies made in Hollywood and the live talk show of Johnny Carson now dominate the radio and TV programs in California.
4. ... It is making something of a comeback as a tourist attraction...
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New York is making attempts to regain its status as a city that attracts tourists .
5. To win in New York is to be uneasy...
Even when a person whins in New York ,he may well be anxious and fearful, for he is afraid of losing what he has gained in the coming fierce competition.
6. Nature’ pleasures are much qualified in New York.
Since New York is a large and crowed city with a lot of tall buildings ,the chance to enjoy the pleasures of nature is very limited here.
7. ...the city’s bright glow arrogantly obscures the heavens.
At night, the lights of New York are so proudly bright that the sky seems to be darkened.
8. But the purity of a bohemian dedication can be exaggerated.
But the pure and wholehearted devotion to a bohemian lifestyle can be overstated.
9. In both these roles it ratifies more than it creates.
In both these roles of banking and communications headquarters, New York creates very few things but approves many things started by people in other parts of the country.
10. The television generation grew up in the insistent presence of hype...
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The television generation was continually and strongly affected by extravagant promotional advertising.
11. ...those who are writing ambitious novels sustain themselves on the magazines.
Writers producing long serious novels also earn their living by writing articles for popular magazines.
12. Boardway, which seemed to be succumbing to the tawdriness of its environment, is astir again.
Boardway, which seemed to be giving up to the cheap ,gaudy shows put on in the surrounding areas,now becomes flourishing and busy again.
13. The defeated are not hidden away somewhere else on the wrong side of town.
Those who failed in the struggle of life ,the down-and-outs ,do no hide themselves away in slums where other people cannot see them.
14. The place constantly exasperates, at times exhilarates.
New York constantly irritates and annoys very much but sometimes it also stimulates.
Those as campaigns celebrating the Big Apple, those T-shirt with a heart design proclaiming “I love New York ”are signs, pathetic in their desperation of how the mighty has fallen.
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那些歌颂大苹果的广告活动和那些宣传“我在纽约”的印有心形图案的T桖是其在绝望中表现出来的悲哀迹象，表明了强者是如何失去地位的。
Nowadays New York is out of phase with American taste as often as it is out of step with American politics.
如今，纽约与美国人的情趣相脱节，就像其往往与美国政治步调不一致一样。
A dozen other cities have buildings more inspired architecturally than any built in New York City in the past twenty years.
其他十二座城市都有些创意极好的建筑，而纽约近二十年来的建筑均不能与之相比。
New York was never a good convention city-being regarded as unfriendly unsafe,overcrowded ,and expensive- but it is making something of a comeback as a tourist attraction.
纽约从来都不是一个召开会议的好场所---被认为不友好、不安全、过度拥挤和消费昂贵---但它正在恢复其旅游胜地的地位。
They take more readily than do most Americans to its cosmopolitan complexities, its surviving ,aloof ,European standards its alien mixtures.
比起大多数美国人，他们更喜欢国际大都市里错综复杂的事物，其仍然存在的、冷漠的欧洲处事标准和各种外来风格的大杂烩。
But all in all, I can’t think of many places in the world I’d rather live.
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但总而言之，我想不出个世界上还有什么其他的地方我更想去居住。
It has become less a tranquil park than an untidy carnival .
中央公园不再是宁静的公园，而更像是乱糟糟的嘉年华。
A testing of oneself, a fear of giving in to the most banal and marketable of one’s talents , still draws many of the young to New York.
为了证明自己，害怕自己的才能沦为最迂腐和最易于在市场上出售的事物，许多年轻人仍然被吸引来到纽约。
In time the newcomers find or form their own worlds; Manhattan is many such worlds, huddled together but rarely interacting.
新来者迟早会找到或形成自己的圈子；曼哈顿有很多这样的圈子，拥挤在一起，但却很少往来。
The newcomers are never fully absorbed, but are added precariously to the undigested many.
新来者从未被完全同化，但是却不确定地加入到了未被消化的多数人之中。
Lesson Eight
1. ....below the noisy arguments , the abuse and the quarrels , there is a reservoir of instinctive fellow-feeling...
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The English people may hotly argue and abuse and quarrel with each other , but there still exists a lot of natural sympathetic feelings for each other in their hearts.
2. ....at heart they would like to take a whip to the whole idle troublesome mob of them.
What the wealthy employers would really like to do is to whip all the workers whom they regard as lazy and troublesome.
3. ...there are not many of these men , either on the board or the shop floor...
There are not many snarling shop stewards in the workshop,nor are there many cruel wealthy employers on the board of directors.
4. It demands bigness ,and they are suspicious of bigness.
The contemporary world demands that everything should be done on a big scale and the English do not trust bigness.
5. Against this , at least superficially ,Englishness seems a poor shadowy show...
At least on the surface ,when Englishness is put against the power and success of Admass , Englishness seems to put up a rather poor performance.
6. ...while Englishness is not hostile to change,it is deeply suspicious of change for change’s sake...
Englishness is not against change, but it believes that changing just for change’s sake
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and not other useful purposes is very wrong and harmful.
7. To put cars and motorways before houses seems to Englishness a communal imbecility.
To regard cars and motorways as more important than houses seems to Englishness a public stupidity.
8. I must add that while Englishness can still fight on ,Admass could be winning.
I must further say that while Englishness can go on fighting, there is a great possibility for Admass to win.
9. It must have some moral capital to draw upon,and soon it may be asking for an overdraft.
Englishness draws its strength from a reservoir of strong moral and ethical principles ,and soon it may be asking for strength which this reservoir of principles cannot provide.
10. They probably believe ,as I do , that the Admass”Good Life” is a fraud on all counts.
There people probably believe ,as I do,that the “Good Life”promised by Admass is false and dishonest in all respects.
11....he will not even find much satisfaction in this scrounging messy existence, which
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does nothing for a man’s self-respect.
He will not even find much satisfaction in this untidy and disordered life where he manages to live as a parasite by sponging on people. This kind of life does not help a person to build up any self-respect.
12.To them the House of Commons is a remote squabbling-shop.
These people consider the House of Commons as a place rather far away from them where some people are always quarreling and arguing over some small matters.
13...heavy hands can fall on the shoulders that have been shrugging away politics.
They were very wrong to ignore politics for they can now suddenly and for no reason be arrested and thrown into prison.
The English are even more different than they think they are , though not more different than they feel they are.
英国人甚至比他们所认为的自己更加与众不同，但是同他们所感觉到的自己差不多。
This is because there are fewer fanatical believers among the English , and at the same time ,below the noisy arguments ,the abuse and the quarrels, there is a reservoir of instinctive fellow-feeling,not yet exhausted though it may not be filling up.
这是因为在英国人当中，没有多少狂热的信徒，同时，在喧闹的争论、谩骂和争吵的背后，储蓄了一种本能的同胞之情，虽然没有满溢但也尚未枯竭。
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The real English , who are “different”,who have inherited Englishness and have not yet thrown away their inheritance cannot feel at home in the contemporary world, representing the accelerated development of our whole age.
“与众不同的”真正的英国人继承了英国特性，并且尚未丢弃他们的传统，他们对这个代表着我们这个时代快速发展的当代世界感到不自在。
Against this , at least superficially, Englishness seems a poor shadowy show- a faint pencil sketch beside a poster in full color -belonging as it really does to the invisible inner world, merely offering states of mind in place of that rich variety of things.
与之相对的是，至少从表面上看来，英国特性似乎是一场不轻眼的影子戏----就像色彩鲜艳的海报旁边的一副模糊的铅笔素描---属于看不见的内心世界，只提供人的心境，而不提供种类繁多的物质用品。但是尽管物质用品是重要的，心境更重要。
But it is worth noting along the way that while America has been for many years the chief advocate of Admass, America has shown us too many desperately worried executives dropping into early graves, too many exhausted salesmen taking refuge in bars and breaking up their homes ,too many workmen suffering from monotony or time-and -motion studies and wondering how the hell they got into these traps
但是，值得注意的是，尽管美国多年来一直是“大众广告”的主要倡导者，美国所展现给我们的是太多忧虑过度的经理英年早逝，太多疲惫不堪的推销员在酒吧里借酒消愁，导致了家庭破裂，太多的工人遭受单调的时间-动作研究之苦，搞不明白他们是如何陷入这些陷阱之中的。
New Englishness , with its relation to the unconscious, its dependence upon instinct and intuition, cannot break its links with the past : it has deep long roots.
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现在，英国特性与潜意识相关联，依赖于本能和直觉，不能与过去相割裂：它已根深蒂固。
Furthermore, while Englishness is not hostile to change ,it is deeply suspicious of change for change’s sake,rejecting the idea that we are now committed to some inevitable mechanical progress.
而且，尽管英国特性对变革没有什么敌意，却极度怀疑为了变革而变革的做法，拒绝那种认为我们必须致力于一些不可避免的机械进步的观点。
Behind the constant bickering , the sudden walk-outs and strikes , the “blood-mindedness”,which bewilder so many foreign commentators,is the conflict between Admass , offering so much, and the Englishness that instinctively recoils from Admassian values and life-style.
在不断争吵的背后，困扰了如此多外国时事评论员的突发罢工和故意作对，成了大众广告和英国特性之间的冲突：前者提供了如此多的东西，后者不愿接受大众广告所提倡的价值观和生活方式。
Moreover ,sooner or later they will have to put an end to this conflict between Admass and what remains of their Englishness ,coming down decisively on one side or the other, for they cannot enjoy both together .
并且，他们迟早将结束这场大众广告和他们所保留的英国特性之间的冲突，果断地回到某一方，因为他们不能同时享有二者。
All heavily industrialized societies are in the boredom business.
所有高度工业化的社会都在制造无聊乏味。
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Dictatorships have thrived on majorities that are apathetic and then frightened , and on minorities that are fanatically divided,brutally quarrelsome and stupid.
独裁统治在那些冷漠而惶恐的多数人和严重分裂，激烈争吵和愚蠢的少数人之间兴盛起来。
A rather poorer and harder way of life will not defeat them so long as it is not harder and poorer in spirit, so long as it still refuses to reject Englishness -for so many centuries the secret of the islanders oddity and irrationality , their many weakness , they creative strength.
再贫困和再艰难的生活方式都不能打败他们，只要他们在精神上不感到艰难和贫困，只要仍然拒绝抛弃英国特性--这就是这么多世纪以来，岛国居民的奇特、非理性、缺点和创造力的奥秘所在。
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