八月练习宫3(宫东风每日词汇测试8.17——8.25)

(1) Even by the standards of a highly ordered country, the traffic on Singapore?s roads flows with an almost eerie? smoothness. At the height of the city-state?s rus h hour, cars glide at a steady pace along the expressways, without traffic jams.

(2) Credit for an achievement that can only be the envy of motorists in Paris, London and Los Angeles goes to Singapore?s system of charging for road use, in place since 1975.

(3) Motorists are charged every time they pass one of 45 gantries on expressways an d roads in Singapore?s urban center at busy times.

（1）即使按照一个高度有序国家的标准来衡量，新加坡道路交通的顺杨也让人感到不可思议。在这个城市国家的交通高峰时段，高速路上的汽车畅行无阻，没有交通堵塞现象。

（2）这个令巴黎、伦敦和洛杉矶的司机羡慕的成就归功于新加坡自1975年以来实施的道路使用收费系统。

（3）在新加坡市中心的高速公路和道路上设有45个信号机架，在交通策忙时段，司机每驶过一个信号机架都要被收取一定的费用。

(4) Prices are adjusted every three months to keep traffic flowing at an optimal speed that allows the maximum number of vehicles to use the road.

(5) If flow is too slow, prices are raised. If it is too fast, prices are lowered. It is the kind of system that is set to become more widespread.

(6) Britain soon may become the largest country switch to charging for distance driven, away from a tax on fuel consumption. London is proposing to charge drivers variable fees for road use, depending on time of day and location, in a plan that would take 10 to 15 years to introduce.

（4）道路使用费标准每三个月调整一次，目的是让交通保持最理想的车流速度，以使道路的使用率达到最高。

（5）如果车流速度太慢，收费就会调高。反之如果太快，收费就会降低。这种系统的使用很可能会日益广泛。

（6）英国可能不久将取消燃油消费税，而成为改按行驶里程收费的最大国度。伦敦正计划根据使用道路的时段及路段向司机收取不同的费用。这一计划将在10至15年之内得以实施。

(7) Although many countries have long had tolls for bridges, tunnels or motorways that were especially costly to build, an increasing number are now also looking at more systematic charges to reduce congestion, raise revenue or encourage other modes of transport.

(8) Britain has already shown itself to be a pioneer in this area. London introduced one of the biggest congestion-based fee systems in 2003.

(9) Austria and Germany have started charging trucks to use their motorways. Switzerland has imposed such a system on its entire road network. Britain plans to introduce a road-use fee system for trucks in 2008.

（7）虽然许多国家很早就已对大桥、隧道或是高速公路征收通行费，因为这些设施的建设耗资巨大，但现在越来越多的国家也在考虑实施更加系统的道路收费制度以缓解交通拥堵，增加财政收人或是鼓励使用其他交通工具。

（8）英国已显示自身将成为这一领域的先驱。2003年，伦敦引人了世界上最大的以缓解交通拥堵为目的的收费系统之一。

（9）奥地利和德国已开始在高速公路上征收卡车的道路使用费。瑞士则将这一收费系统强制推行到其整个公路网中。英国计划于2008年采用卡车公路使用收费系统。

(10) In the U.S., Oregon is also considering a charging system. In Norway, vehicles are charged fees to enter some city centers.

(11) Practical problems remain. Britain, for instance, will have to fit road-pricing equipment to more than 30 million vehicles, contrasted with only about 700,000 in Singapore.

(12) Substantial political challenges also loom; voters in Edinburgh in February rejected plans for a

congestion charge on vehicles entering the Scottish capital.

（10）在美国，俄勒冈州也在考虑采用道路收费系统。而在挪威，车辆进人一些城市的中心地区就必须缴费。

（11）实施道路使用收费系统也存在着一些实际的问题。例如，英国为此将不得不为3000多万车辆安装道路收费设备，这与只有70万辆的新加坡形成鲜明对比。

（12）实施这种收费系统也会引起大量政治问题的出现。今年2月，爱丁堡的选民便反对为减轻交通阻塞而对进人爱丁堡(苏格兰首都)的车辆收费的计划。

(13) Charging for road use has the potential to tackle tough transport challenges, such as growing traffic volumes and the increasing fuel efficiency of vehicle engines.

(14) Growing efficiency has made fuel taxation, the traditional means of charging for road use, less effective.

(15) That, together with falling car production costs, has made driving cheaper as more environmentally friendly alternatives, such as rail, become more expensive.

（13）道路使用收费系统有望解决严重的交通问题，诸如不断增加的交通流量以及日渐提高的汽车引擎燃油效率。

（14）不断提高的燃油效率已使征收燃油税这一传统的道路使用收费方式的有效性下降。

（15）这一点连同汽车生产成本的降低，使开汽车越来越便宜，而诸如火车这样的有利于环保的其他交通方式的使用则越来越昂贵。

(16) Different road-pricing structures target different aspects of the problem.

(17) Chin Kian Keong, chief engineer for transportation at Singapore?s Land Transport Authority, says Singapore?s system was not introduced primarily to raise revenue.

(18) “We always position our road-pricing system as a congestion or traffic management tool, not as a tool to get revenue,” he said. “That principle has remained until today. Revenue was not a consideration.”

（16）不同的道路收费结构意图从不同方面解决这一问题。

（17）新加坡陆路交通管理局负责交通事务的总工程师金克强(音)说，新加坡实施道路收费系统的主要目的并不是为了增加收人。

（18）他说:”我们一直把道路使用收费系统作为减少交通堵塞或进行交通管理的工具，而不是增加收人的手段。这一原则至今未变。我们并没有考虑通过它来增加收人。”

(19) Oregon, however, has said it is looking at road pricing mainly because more-efficient engines are reducing the fuel tax revenue it needs to build and maintain made. Road-pricing revenue would reflect the damage done to its roads by increasing numbers of cars.

(20) Switzerland began charging freight trucks to reduce the number of traps-Alpine truck journeys and to encourage a switch to rail. Two-thirds of the revenue pays for investments in Switzerland?s rail network. (21) The most powerful argument for road pricing may be that it can produce almost instant results.

（19）然而，俄勒冈州政府表示，采用道路收费系统主要是因为汽车引擎效率的提高减少了燃油税收人，而减少了的税收不能满足道路建设和维护所需的费用。道路使用税费数目可以反映出不断增加的汽车对道路的损坏程度。

（20）为了减少跨阿尔卑斯山卡车的流量并鼓励改用火车运输，瑞士已开始征收货运卡车的道路使用费。这项收人的2/3被用于瑞士铁路网的建设。

（21）使用道路收费系统最强有力的论据或许就在于它几乎能迅即见效。

(22) According to Kurt Moll, head of freight and traff ic at Switzerland?s Federal Transport Office, truck trips have fallen by 10% since Switzerland introduced its charge in 2001.

(23) Traffic entering central London when its congestion charge of 5 pounds (about $9) was in force fell 15% during the charge?s first year. Time lost to traffic delays fell by 30% in the period.

(24) In Singapore, the switch from a paper-based system using toll booths to an electronic system in which

prices could be varied reduced traffic at the busiest times by 15% in the first year.

（22）瑞士联邦运输署货运交通处主任库尔特·莫尔说，自2001年瑞士采用这一收费系统以来卡车流量降低了10%。

（23）在为减少交通堵塞而征收5英镑(约9美元)的措施实施的第一年里，进入伦敦市中心的汽车就减少了15%。

（24）在新加坡，从采用在收费站进行票据收费的系统转变为采用其收费标准可进行调整的电子系统后的第一年，高峰时段的交通量下降了15%。

(1) When is an apology not enough？What is the difference between a clarification and a correction or an admission of error？Is a retraction' the same as a recantation？To recant is to withdraw or disavow a declared belief, as in renouncing a philosophy or abjuring fealty to a religion.

(2) The most famous recantation in history was that made by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, when threatened by the Inquisition in 1633 with dire punishment for advocating the theory of Copernicus that the earth was not the center of the universe but that it moved around the sun: “I abjure, curse and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies,” swore the intimidated scientist, legendarily adding under his breath, “eppur si muove”—”but it moves.”That retraction of his recantation is apocryphal, probably the starry-eyed wish of subsequent astronomers.)

(3) To retract, from the Latin for to draw back, is directed to a specific statement more than a body of work. The most famous retraction this year was made by Newsweek magazine after it apologized for a portion of an article alleging that an internal military investigation had uncovered an instance of desecration of the Koran.

(4) At first, the magazine issued an apology—an expression of regret—pointing out that its single anonymous source no longer recalled if the allegation was in a certain report.

(5) The White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said that it was “puzzling” that Newsweek had not retracted the article. Next day, Mark Whitaker, the magazine's managing editor, told The New York Times that “it seemed that people felt like we weren't apologizing. In order for people to understand we had made an error we had to say …re-traction? because that's the word they were looking for.”

(6) The embattled editor was being precise: Retraction is a weighty word, in this case asserting that the report was mistaken and forthrightly attempting to mitigate the great damage done.

(7) The current meaning of retract goes well beyond “we?re not sure of this, so we're withdrawing it with our apologies,” which is a mild form of reputation reparation; instead, retract means “we made a mistake and we take back what we published or broadcast so you can see we weren't being malicious.”

(8) Though U.S. libel law differs from state to state, a prominently displayed retraction can be evidence of

a lack of “actual malice,” one of the standards established in the Supreme Court's famous 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. The Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld informs me that “a retraction generally admits publication of inaccurate (i.e., false) information but does not admit malice.”

(9) Indeed, a publisher's failure to make a retraction may help a public figure to establish such malice needed to win a defamation case. (Belatedly for a former polemicist, I've been reading “Sack on Defamation,”by Appellate Justice Robert D. Sack, where I found the Galileo footnote.)

(10) A correction is a retraction without all the nervous groveling. It deals with facts rather than judgments;

in journalistic usage, a correction sets right an inaccuracy. In the preceding paragraph, I called Sack a “justice,”but that title is reserved for a member of the Supreme Court. This is a correction—he?s just a judge—but to call my minor rectification a retraction would be silly. (0.K., Sack—sue me.)

(11) Corrections may be minor, as this example is intended to illustrate, or cumulatively major: The New York Time s’s extensive examination of its reporter Jayson Blair's deceptions contained a long list of corrections but no retractions.

(12) However, when the emendation (to improve through alteration) or rectification (to conform to standards) involves a matter of editorial judgment rather than inaccuracy, the paper's self-correction box is labeled “editors?note.”