其他
看美国大选辩论学英语系列(一)
Trumped-up是个固定表达,表示“伪造的,捏造的,莫须有的”。希拉里在这里用trumped-up来修饰trickle-down可谓一语双关,既表明这种理论是虚假的,同时提到了特朗普的名字Trump,说明这样不靠谱的政策是特朗普提出来的。姜果然是老的辣。
其实,中文里表达这个意思的说法也不少,比如,李克强总理曾经说过的“喊破嗓子不如甩开膀子”(Talking the talk is not as good as walking the walk),“说起来容易做起来难”(it’s easier said than done),“光说不练”(all talk and no action),等等。
Watch list就是国际刑警组织列出的有恐怖分子嫌疑的人员名单,no fly list大家都知道,就是“禁飞名单”,也是因为有恐怖分子嫌疑而被禁止搭乘飞机的人员名单。我们的生活中充斥着各种各样的list,手机上可以设blacklist,把某些人的电话给屏蔽了,与之对应的自然就是whitelist,白名单上的人和事都是畅行无阻,获得准许的。近几年咱们国家搞自贸区,还出现了一个negative list(负面清单),也就是说,列在这个单子上的事情不能做,不在这个单子上的都可以做。
“First of all, I agree, and a lot of people even within my own party want to give certain rights to people on watch lists and no fly lists. I agree with you, when a person is on a watch list or a no fly list -- and I have the endorsement of the NRA, which I'm very proud of, these are very very good people, and they are protecting the Second Amendment -- but I think we have to look very strongly at no fly lists and watch lists, and when people are on there, even if they shouldn't be on there, we'll help them, we'll help them legally, we'll help them get off. But I tend to agree with that, quite strongly. 首先,我同意,共和党内很多人都想让在监视名单和禁飞名单上的人有一些特定的权利。我同意你的意见。如果有人被列入监视名单或禁飞名单,插一句,我得到了美国步枪协会的支持,这让我很自豪,他们都是特别特别好的人,他们在捍卫第二修正案,但我认为我们应该对列在这些名单上的人严密监视,如果有人被列入这些名单,就算他们不应该被列入,我们帮助他们,用合法的方式帮助他们,帮助他们解除嫌疑。但我还是同意,严密监视。”
Wreak havoc是一个固定搭配,wreak是动词,表示“造成(混乱或破坏); 实施(报复)”,havoc则表示“大动乱,浩劫”等严重受损的局面,常用的搭配是wreak havoc on somebody/something,比如:Their policies would wreak havoc on the economy. 如果要表示“实施报复”可以用wreak vengeance on表示。
“There's no doubt now that Russia has used cyberattacks against all kinds of organizations in our country, and I am deeply concerned about this. I know Donald is very praise -- praiseworthy of Vladimir Putin. But Putin is playing a very tough, long game here. And one of the things he's done is to let loose cyber attackers to hack into government files, to hack into personal files, hack into the Democratic National Committee. And we recently have learned that this is one of their preferred methods of trying to wreak havoc and collect information. 俄罗斯对我国的各类机构进行网络攻击这事儿已经毫无疑问了,我对此很担忧。我知道特朗普对普京赞赏有加。但是,普京在跟我们玩一个长期且有难度的游戏。他做过的事情包括,让网络攻击人员肆意入侵我们的政府文件、个人档案以及民主党全国委员会。我们最近才意识到,他们更愿意用这样的方式对我们造成巨大伤害,然后收集我们的信息。”
Taunt是个多功能的词,可用作名词、形容词和动词,表示“嘲笑,奚落,讥讽,笑柄”等意。这里想介绍几个结尾字母与其相近的几个词:flaunt,炫耀/夸耀,我们原来说的“炫富”就可以用flaunt wealth表示;haunt,经常光顾/时常萦绕心头,比如:this café is the haunt of office workers in the building;vaunt,吹嘘/自夸,比如,empty vaunt/he is a real vaunter等。这个vaunt可以补充进前面第4条braggadocios的近义词当中。
“I spent a year and a half putting together a coalition that included Russia and China, to impose the toughest sanctions on Iran, and we did drive them to the negotiating table. And my successor, John Kerry and President Obama got a deal that put a lid on Iran's nuclear program. Without firing a single shot. That's diplomacy. That's coalition building. That's working with other nations. The other day, I saw Donald saying that there were some Iranian sailors on a ship in the waters off of Iran, and they were taunting American sailors who were on a nearby ship. He said, you know, if they taunted our sailors, I'd blow them out of the water and start another war. 我花了一年半的时间把俄罗斯和中国等国家叫到一起,对伊朗实施了最严厉的制裁,后来我们的确把伊朗拖到了谈判桌前。我的继任者克里和奥巴马总统最终和伊朗达成了限制其核项目协议。没有费一枪一弹。那才是外交。那才是结盟。那才是与其他国家合作。有一天,我看到特朗普说,伊朗海域附近一艘船上的伊朗士兵在嘲笑临近一艘船上的美国士兵。他说,你知道,如果他们嘲笑我们的士兵,我会把他们的船炸了,然后再发动一次战争。”