「经济学人」看抖音和微信间的“头腾大战” (1)
Trill-seeker
A Chinese music-video app is making WeChat sweat
Tik Tok has become the world’s most downloaded iPhone app, barring games
○trill 可作动词也可作名词，表示“发出抖动的声音(如字母 r 的音)”，或者“颤音”，也可以指鸟叫声“啼啭，唧唧啾啾”。而“seeker”表示“寻找者；追求者；探求者”，如“求职者 job seeker”，这里的trill-seeker想表达的是热衷于「抖音」这个应用的人们。
○make someone sweat: sweat 汗水、流汗，这里引申为“让某人焦急、烦恼”。举个🌰 It seemed that the authorities had delayed the news just to make us sweat. 当局推迟发布新闻似乎就是要让我们着急。
○barring 表示“除非，除了…以外”，unless something happens，举个🌰 Barring a miracle, he won't walk again. 除非出现奇迹，他是不可能再行走了。
○Tik Tok是抖音国际版的英文名，如今在iPhone应用商店里已经是除了游戏之外，下载量最高的一款应用了。
○music-video app 音乐视频App
○short-video app 短视频App
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第1段>>>
A PUBLIC spat between two warring and wildly popular Chinese apps has had the feel of a teenage dance-off.
○spat在文中作为名词，表示“口角，小争吵；争执”
○warring意思是“交战的，敌对的”，举个🌰 交战的各方 warring factions/parties
○dance-off的英文解释为：A competition, or a round in a competition, in which a number of dancers compete against each other until a winner is declared. 可以理解为“斗舞”或者“尬舞”，想要表达的意思应该是微信和抖音两大巨头之间的“交战”让人感觉像是小孩子间在玩闹“斗舞”一样。
“Sorry, Douyin Fans”, ran an article from the short-video app on its WeChat account, in which it accused the mobile-messaging service of disabling links to Douyin's most popular videos.
○相关背景
5月18日，抖音发布的一个H5活动“第一届文物戏精大赛”在微信朋友圈被广泛刷屏，不久后便无法打开。抖音方面发布声明（关于博物馆H5两次被微信封杀的情况说明）称遭微信封杀。微信方面称，因其“存在诱导分享行为”，故平台对其进行了相应处理。随后，抖音再次发布声明：抖音的朋友们，对不起。
○run [熟词僻义] 在文中“run an article”的意思是“发表；刊登；播放”，举个🌰 The company is running a series of advertisements in national newspapers. 公司正在全国性报纸上刊登一系列广告。
○disable links 封杀/封禁链接
“All hail Douyin the drama queen,” retorted Tencent, WeChat's parent, which said it had acted because the content was “inappropriate”.
○戏精怎么说？经济学人告诉你“drama queen”：表示的是a person who tends to react to every situation in an overdramatic or exaggerated manner 作秀行家；小题大做的人，反应激烈夸张的人，举个🌰 You're such a drama queen! It's no big deal. 你太小题大做了！这不是什么大不了的事情。
○Wechat's parent 这里的parent很明了，就是“创始的 (组织); 母 (公司)”，那么Douyin's parent是谁呢？下一段告诉你，Bytedance 字节跳动(公司)。
这里插一句，很多人可能搞不清「今日头条」、「抖音」、「字节跳动」的关系，实际上「今日头条」和「抖音」都是「字节跳动公司」旗下的产品。
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On June 1st Tencent sued Douyin's parent company, Bytedance, for 1 yuan (15 cents) and demanded it apologise for its accusations—on its own platforms (and presumably without the snark). Tencent also alleged unfair competition. Within hours Douyin counter-sued for 90m yuan.
○相关背景：腾讯起诉今日头条系，索赔1元并要求道歉；随后，今日头条起诉腾讯：索赔9000万元。
○snark：critical comments that are made in order to hurt someone's feelings; a comment of this type 刻意中伤的批评
Bytedance and Tencent later swapped accusations of tolerating smear campaigns against the other on their apps, and filed police reports about defamatory posts.
○counter-sue：提出反诉；反控诉
○smear campaign: a deliberate plan to tell untrue stories about an important person in order to make people lose respect for them – used especially in newspapers 抹黑行动〔指蓄意诽谤重要人物以损害其名声的行为，尤用于报纸上〕,也可以用“smear tactic”或者直接是“smear”。
维基百科解释为：抹黑策略/抹黑运动/抹黑攻击，是一种政治或选举学术语，指以未经证实的言词攻击对手，包括造谣中伤、扭曲其说法、将部分事实加油添醋、以谎言人身攻击，而使对手声誉及可信性受质疑。
○defamatory 形容词，表示“诽谤的”(Speech or writing that is defamatory is likely to damage someone's good reputation by saying something bad and untrue about them.) 举个🌰 The article was highly defamatory. 这篇文章充满诽谤。
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