《新概念英语》第二册第73集：The record-holder

Lesson 73 The record-holder

First listen and then answer the question.

Did the boy go where he wanted to?

Children who play truant from school are unimaginative. A quiet day's fishing, or eight hours in a cinema seeing the same film over and over again, is usually as far as they get. They have all been put to shame by a boy who, while playing truant, travelled 1,600 miles. He hitchhiked to Dover and, towards evening, went into a boat to find somewhere to sleep. When he woke up next morning, he discovered that the boat had, in the meantime, travelled to Calais. No one noticed the boy as he crept off. From there, he hitchhiked to Paris in a lorry. The driver gave him a few biscuits and a cup of coffee and left him just outside the city. The next car the boy stopped did not take him into the centre of Paris as he hoped it would, but to Perpignan on the French-Spanish border. There he was picked up by a policeman and sent back to England by the local authorities. He has surely set up a record for the thousands of children who dream of evading school.

New words and expressions

生词和短语

record-holder  纪录保持者

truant [ˈtruːənt]  vi.逃学;逃避责任;偷懒 n.旷课的小学生

词源：来自古法语truant，乞丐，无赖，后来用该词来指在某地附近流浪的人，尤其是逃课的小学生。来源：童理民

A number of pupils have been truanting regularly.

不少小学生一直经常旷课。

She was getting into trouble over playing truant from school.

她因逃课而惹了麻烦。

unimaginative  adj. 缺乏想像力的

shame  n. 惭愧，羞耻

hitchhike [ˈhɪtʃhaɪk]  vi.搭便车;搭顺风车

词源：该词系由hitch（拴住，套马）与hike（徒步旅行）二词复合而成，原由两人轮流骑一马的旅行：一人先骑上一程，然后下马，将马拴(hitch)在一棵树上或柱子上，留待另一人来骑，而自己则转为步行(hike)，第二个人来到拴马处，骑上马直至赶上他的朋友。这种旅行方式在旧时曾被广为采用，通常叫做riding and tying（骑骑拴拴）。1737年英国作家、辞书编纂者约翰逊( Samuel Johnson，1709 - 1784)和演员、戏剧家加里克（David Garrick，1717 - 1779）结伴从利奇菲尔德( Lichfield)去伦敦旅行用的就是这种方式，当然他们不是最先也不是最后用这种方式旅行的人。到了20世纪30年代hitchhike一词在美国英语中开始被引申用来表示“免费搭乘他人便车”，因为这种旅行恰如两人轮流骑一马的旅行，往往是乘了又下，下了又乘，如此反复数次，才能抵达目的地。来源：童理民

They hitchhiked around Europe.

他们一路搭便车周游欧洲。

On my way to Vancouver one Friday night I picked up a hitchhiker.

一个周五晚上，我在去温哥华的途中捎上了一个搭便车的人。

meantime  n. 其间

lorry  n. 卡车

border  n. 边界

evade [ɪˈveɪd]  vt.逃避;躲避;逃脱;躲开;规避(尤指法律或道德责任);回避(处理或谈论某事)

e 出，外 + vad 走 + e → 走出去 → 逃出

For two weeks they evaded the press.

他们有两周一直避而不见记者。

Come on, don't you think you're evading the issue ?

得了吧，你不认为你是在回避这个问题吗？

参考译文

逃学的孩子们都缺乏想像力。他们通常能够做到的，至多也就是安静地钓上一天鱼，或在电影院里坐上8个小时，一遍遍地看同一部电影。而有那么一个小男孩，他在逃学期间旅行了1,600英里，从而使上述所有逃学的孩子们都相形见绌了。他搭便车到了多佛，天快黑时钻进了一条船，想找个地方睡觉。第二天早上他醒来时，发现船在这段时间已经到了加。当男孩从船里爬出来时，谁也没有发现他。从那里他又搭上卡车到了巴黎。司机给了他几块饼干和一杯咖啡，就把他丢在了城外。男孩截住的下一辆车，没有像他希望的那样把他带到巴黎市中心，而是把他带到了法国和西班牙边界上的佩皮尼昂。他在那儿被一个警察抓住了，之后被当局送回了英国。他无疑为成千上万梦想逃避上学的孩子们创造了一项纪录。

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