读篇《经济学人》07: 吐槽川普

f今天周六，一起从8.17日《经济学人》中学点英文。

第一篇

原文地址：https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21726696-u-turns-self-regard-and-equivocation-are-not-what-it-takes-donald-trump-has-no-grasp-what-it

《经济学人》一直都不喜欢Donald Trump，每次写起他来都有些“咬牙切齿”的感觉。这篇文章吐槽了他在处理弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔事件的不当之处，从中选取几段，我们用来学点英文。

Mr Trump is not a white supremacist. He repeated his criticism of neo-Nazis and spoke out against the murder of Heather Heyer (see our Obituary). Even so, his unsteady response contains a terrible message for Americans. Far from being the saviour of the Republic, their president is politically inept, morally barren and temperamentally unfit for office.

文中politically inept, morally barren and temperamentally unfit用到了最基本的“副词+形容词”的套路，从三个方面吐槽了Trump：政治上，无能；道德上，无耻；性格上，无可救药... 

 后面具体论述这三点，用到了这样的开头层层深入有理有据：

• Start with the ineptness...

• Mr Trump’s inept politics stem from a moral failure. 

• At the root of it all is Mr Trump’s temperament. 

文章最后一段这样写的：

Republicans can curb Mr Trump if they choose to. Rather than indulging his outrages in the hope that something good will come of it, they must condemn them. The best of them did so this week. Others should follow.

《经济学人》一贯的风格，态度鲜明立场坚定，具体表现是用短句传达了自己的态度。

第二篇

原文地址：https://www.economist.com/news/china/21726748-and-glossing-over-its-own-history-mauling-chinese-culture-communist-party-redefining

CHILDREN sit with straight backs chanting in loud voices from the Dizi Gui, a classic Chinese text about obedience. At the end of class they bow low to an image of Confucius, hands clasped as if in prayer. A statue of the ancient sage watches over the playground, too: “Study the Dizi Gui, be a good Chinese,” reads a red banner. At the Zhengde summer camp in Jinan, in the eastern province of Shandong, children as young as five spend their day reciting verses, learning tai chi and watching cartoons with moral messages. Phones are banned “to prevent contamination of the mind”, says Yi Shugui, the headmaster, a former management consultant. At similar summer schools across China children learn calligraphy, traditional Chinese crafts and how to play ancient instruments. China is undergoing a cultural renaissance, much of it government-sponsored.

这一段中，我们主要学习一个语法知识：独立结构。这两句话中都用到了独立结构：

• At the end of class they bow low to an image of Confucius, hands clasped as if in prayer.

• China is undergoing a cultural renaissance, much of it government-sponsored.

独立结构之所以被称为“独立”，是因为它有自己的主语，而且这个主语和主句的主语不一样；称它为“结构”，而不是“句子”，是因为它并不是一个句子，它并没有谓语动词。

独立主格的基本形式是：主语+非谓语动词/形容词。主要功能是用来修饰整个句子，也就是我们常说的作“状语”。

一起来看一道GMAT语法题：

Having the right hand and arm being crippled by a sniper's bullet during the First World War, Horace, Pippin, a Black American painter, worked by holding the brush in his right hand and guiding its movements with his left.

划线部分正确吗？如果不正确的话应该怎么改呢？留言在下面吧。