韩素音青年翻译奖
第26届韩素音青年翻译奖大赛参赛试卷（英译汉）
第26届韩素音青年翻译奖大赛参赛试卷（英译汉）请按照以下格式在答卷上填写选手信息栏姓名：_______性别：_____ 学号：_______年级专业：______________ 学院（全称）：_________________ 联系方式：_____________英译汉竞赛原文：How the News Got Less MeanThe most read article of all time on BuzzFeed contains no photographs of celebrity nip slips and no inflammatory ranting. It’s a series of photos called “21 pictures that will restore your faith in humanity,” which has pulled in nearly 14 million visits so far. At Upworthy too, hope is the major draw. “This kid just died. What he lef t behind is wondtacular,” an Upworthy post about a terminally ill teen singer, earned 15 million views this summer and has raised more than $300,000 for cancer research.The recipe for attracting visitors to stories online is changing. Bloggers have traditionally turned to sarcasm and snark to draw attention. But the success of sites like BuzzFeed and Upworthy, whose philosophies embrace the viral nature of upbeat stories, hints that the Web craves positivity.The reason: social media. Researchers are discovering that people want to create positive images of themselves online by sharing upbeat stories. And with more people turning to Facebook and Twitter to find out what’s happening in the world, news stories may need to cheer up in order to court an audience. If social is the future of media, then optimistic stories might be media’s future.“When we started, the prevailing wisdom was that snark ruled the Internet,” says Eli Pariser, a co-founder of Upworthy. “And we just had a really different sense of what works.”“You don’t want to be that guy at the party who’s crazy and angry and ranting in the corner —it’s the same for Twitter or Facebook,” he says. “Part of what we’re trying to do with Upworthy is give people the tools to express a conscientious, thoughtful and positive identity in social media.”And the science appears to support Pariser’s philosophy. In a recent study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers found that “up votes,” showing that a visitor liked a comment or story, begat more up votes on comments on the site, but “down votes” did not do the same. In fact, a single up vote increased the likelihood that someone else would like a comment by 32%, whereas a down vote had no effect. People don’t want to support the cranky commenter, the critic or the troll. Nor do they want to be that negative personality online.In another study published in 2012, Jonah Berger, author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On and professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, monitored the most e-mailed stories produced by the New York Times for six months and found that positive stories were more likely to make the list than negative ones.“What we share [or like] is almost like the car we drive or the clothes we wear,” he says. “It says something about us to other people. So people would much rather be seen as a Positive Polly than a Debbie Downer.”It’s not always that simple: Berger says that though positive pieces drew more traffic than negative ones, within the categories of positive and negative stories, those articles that elicited more emotion always led to more shares.“Take two negative emotions, for example: anger and sadness,” Berger says. “Both of those emotions would make the reader feel bad. But anger, a high arousal emotion, leads to more sharing, whereas sadness, a low arousal emotion, doesn’t. The same is true of the positive side: excitement and humor increase sharing, whereas contentment decreases sharing.”And while some popular BuzzFeed posts —like the recent “Is this the most embarrassing interview Fox News has ever done?” —might do their best to elicit shares through anger, both BuzzFeed and Upworthy recognize that their main success lies in creating positive viral material.“It’s not that people don’t share negative stories,” says Jack Shepherd, editorial director at BuzzFeed. “It just means that there’s a higher potential for positive stories to do well.”Upworthy’s mission is to highlight serious issues but in a hopeful way, encouraging readers to donate money, join organizations and take action. The strategy seems to be working: barely two years after its launch date (in March 2012), the site now boasts 30 million unique visitors per month, according to Upwort hy. The site’s average monthly unique visitors grew to 14 million people over its first six quarters — to put that in perspective, the Huffington Post had only about 2 million visitors in its first six quarters online.But Upworthy measures the success of a story not just by hits. The creators of the site only consider a post a success if it’s also shared frequently on social media. “We are interested in content that people want to share partly for pragmatic reasons,” Pariser says. “If you don’t have a g ood theory about how to appear in Facebook and Twitter, then you may disappear.”Nobody has mastered the ability to make a story go viral like BuzzFeed. The site, which began in 2006 as a lab to figure out what people share online, has used what it’s le arned to draw 60 million monthly unique visitors, according to BuzzFeed. (Most of that traffic comes from social-networking sites, driving readers toward BuzzFeed’s mix of cute animal photos and hard news.) By comparison the New York Times website, one of the most popular newspaper sites on the Web, courts only 29 million unique visitors each month, according to the Times.BuzzFeed editors have found that people do still read negative or critical stories, they just aren’t the posts they share with their friends. And those shareable posts are the ones that newsrooms increasingly prize.“Anecdotally, I can tell you people are just as likely to click on negative stories as they are to click on positive ones,” says Shepherd. “But they’re more likely to sh are positive stories. What you’re interested in is different from what you want your friends to see what you’re interested in.”So as newsrooms re-evaluate how they can draw readers and elicit more shares on Twitter and Facebook, they may look to BuzzFe ed’s and Upworthy’s happiness model for direction.“I think that the Web is only becoming more social,” Shepherd says. “We’re at a point where readers are your publishers. If news sites aren’t thinking about what it would mean for someone to share a story on social media, that coul be detrimental.”PS：1.请各位参赛选手关注我们的新浪微博：@安徽师范大学翻译协会2014，和腾讯微博：@安徽师范大学译协。
第十七届“韩素音青年翻译奖”赛中文原文及参考译文和解析
老来乐Delights in Growing Old六十整岁望七十岁如攀高山。
不料七十岁居然过了。
又想八十岁是难于上青天，可望不可即了。
岂知八十岁又过了。
老汉今年八十二矣。
这是照传统算法，务虚不务实。
现在不是提倡尊重传统吗 ?At the age of sixty I longed for a life span of seventy, a goal as difficult as a summit to be reached. Who would expect that I had reached it? Then I dreamed of living to be eighty, a target in sight but as inaccessible as Heaven. Out of my anticipation, I had hit it. As a matter of fact, I am now an old man of eighty-two. Such longevity is a grant bestowed by Nature; though nominal and not real, yet it conforms to our tradition. Is it not advocated to pay respect to nowadays?老年多半能悟道。
孔子说“天下有道”。
老子说“道可道”。
《圣经》说“太初有道”。
佛教说“邪魔外道”。
我老了，不免胡思乱想，胡说八道，自觉悟出一条真理 : 老年是广阔天地，是可以大有作为的。
An old man is said to understand the Way most probably: the Way of good administration as put forth by Confucius, the Way that can be explained as suggested by Laotzu, the Word (Way) in the very beginning as written in the Bible and the Way of pagans as denounced by the Buddhists. As I am growing old, I can't help being given to flights of fancy and having my own Way of creating stories. However I have come to realize the truth: my old age serves as a vast world in which I can still have my talents employed fully and developed completely.七十岁开始可以诸事不做而拿退休金，不愁没有一碗饭吃，自由自在，自得其乐。
第十九届韩素音青年翻译奖参赛原文
第十九届韩素音青年翻译奖参赛原文英译汉部分：The Making of AshendenI’ve been spared a lot, one of the blessed of the earth, at least one of its lucky, that privileged handful of the dramatically prospering, the sort whose secrets are asked, like the hundred-year-old man. There is no secret, of course; most of what happens to us is simple accident. Highish birth and a smooth network of appropriate connection like a tea service written into the will. But surely something in the blood too, locked into good fortune’s dominant genes like a blast ripening in a time bomb. Set to go off, my good looks and intelligence, yet exceptional still, take away my mouthful of silver spoon and lapful of luxury. Something my own, not passed on or handed down, something seized, wrested—my good character, hopefully, my taste perhaps. What’s mine, what’s mine? Say taste—the soul’s harmless appetite.I’ve money, I’m rich. The heir to four fortunes. Grandfather on Mother’s side was a Newpert. The family held some good real estate in Rhode Island until they sold it for many times what they gave for it. Grandmother on Father’s side was a Salts, whose bottled mineral water, once available only through prescription and believed indispensable in the cure of all fevers, was the first product ever to be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration, a famous and controversial case. The government found it to contain nothing that was actually detrimental to human beings, and it went public, so to speak. Available now over the counter, the Salts made more money from it than ever.Mother was an Oh. Her mother was the chemical engineer who first discovered a feasible way to store oxygen in tanks. And Father was Noel Ashenden, who though he did not actually invent the match-book, went into the field when it was still a not very flourishing novelty, and whose slogan, almost a poem,‘Close Cover Before Striking’(a simple stroke, as Father liked to say), obvious only after someone else has already thought of it (the Patent Office refused to issue a patent on what it claimed was merely an instruction, but Father’s company had the message on its matchbooks before his competitors even knew what was happening), removed the hazard from book matches and turned the industry and Father’s firm particularly into a flaming success overnight—Father’s joke, not mine. Later, when the inroads of Ronson and Zippo threatened the business, Father went into seclusion for six months and when he returned to us he had produced another slogan:‘For Our Matchless Friends.’It saved the industry a second time and was the second and last piece of work in Father’s life.There are people who gather in the spas and watering places of this world who pooh-pooh our fortune. Après ski, cozy in their wools, handsome before their open hearths, they scandal ize amongst themselves in whispers. ‘Imagine’, they say, ‘savedfrom ruin because of some cornball sentiment available in every bar and grill and truck stop in the country. It’s not, not...’Not what? Snobs! Phooey on the First Families. On railroad, steel mill, automotive, public utility, banking and shipping fortunes, on all hermetic legacy, morganatic and blockbuster blood-lines that change the maps and landscapes and alter the mobility patterns, your jungle wheeling and downtown dealing a stone’s throw from warfare. I come of good stock—real estate, mineral water, oxygen, matchbooks: earth, water, air and fire, the old elementals of the material universe, a bellybutton economics, a linchpin one.It is as I see it a perfect genealogy, and if I can be bought and sold a hundred times over by a thousand men in this country—people in your own town could do it, providents and trailers of hunch, I bless them, who got into this or went into that when it was eight cents a share—I am satisfied with my thirteen or fourteen million. Wealth is not after all the point. The genealogy is. That bridge-trick nexus that brought Newpert to Oh, Salts to Ashenden and Ashenden to Oh, love’s lucky longshots which, paying off, permitted me as they permit every human life! (I have this simple, harmless paranoia of the good-natured man, this cheerful awe.) Forgive my enthusiasm, that I go on like some secular patriot wrapped in the simple flag of self, a professional descendant, every day the closed-for-the-holiday banks and post offices of the heart. And why not? Aren’t my circumstances superb? Whose are better? No boast, no boast. I’ve had it easy, served up on all life’s silver platters like a satrap. And if my money is managed for me and I do no work—less work even than Father, who at least came up with those two slogans, the latter in a six-month solitude that must have been hell for that gregarious man (‘For Our Matchless Friends’: no slogan finally but a broken code, an extension of his own hospitable being, simply the Promethean gift of fire to a guest)—at least I am not ‘spoiled’ and have in me still alive the nerve endings of gratitude. If it’s miserly to count one’s blessings, Brewster Ashenden’s a miser.This will give you some idea of what I’m like:On Having an Account in a Swiss Bank: I never had one, and suggest you stay away from them too. Oh, the mystery and romance is all very well, but never forget that your Swiss bank offers no premiums, whereas for opening a savings account for 5,000 or more at First National City Bank of New York or other fine institutions you get wonderful premiums—picnic hampers, Scotch coolers, Polaroid cameras, Hudson’s Bay blankets from L. L. Bean, electric shavers, even lawn furniture. My managers always leave me a million or so to play wi th, and this is how I do it. I suppose I’ve received hundreds of such bonuses. Usually I give them to friends or as gifts at Christmas to doormen and other loosely connected personnel of the household, but often I keep them and use them myself. I’m not sti ngy. Of course I can afford to buy any of these things — and I do, I enjoy making purchases — but somehow nothing brings the joy of existence home to me more than these premiums. Something fromnothing — the two-suiter from Chase Manhattan and my own existence, luggage a bonus and life a bonus too. Like having a film star next to you on your flight from the Coast. There are treats of high order, adventure like cash in the street.Let’s enjoy ourselves, I say; let’s have fun. Lord, let us live in the sand b y the surf of the sea and play till cows come home. We’ll have a house on the Vineyard and a brownstone in the Seventies and a pied-à-terre in a world capital when something big is about to break. (Put the Cardinal in the back bedroom where the sun gilds the bay at afternoon tea and give us the courage to stand up to secret police at the door, to top all threats with threats of our own, the nicknames of mayors and ministers, the fast comeback at the front stairs, authority on us like the funny squiggle the counterfeiters miss.) Re-Columbus us. Engage us with the overlooked, a knowledge of optics, say, or a gift for the tides. (My pal, the heir to most of the vegetables in inland Nebraska, has become a superb amateur oceanographer. The marine studies people i nvite him to Wood’s Hole each year. He has a wave named for him.) Make us good at things, the countertenor and the German language, and teach us to be as easy in our amateur standing as the best man at a roommate’s wedding. Give us hard tummies behind the cummerbund and long swimmer’s muscles under the hound’s tooth so that we may enjoy our long life. And may all our stocks rise to the occasion of our best possibilities, and our humanness be bullish too.Speaking personally I am glad to be a heroic man.I am pleased that I am attractive to women but grateful I’m no bounder. Though I’m touched when married women fall in love with me, as frequently they do, I am rarely to blame. I never encourage these fits and do my best to get them over their derangements so as not to lose the friendships of their husbands when they are known to me, or the neutral friendship of the ladies themselves. This happens less than you might think, however, for whenever I am a houseguest of a married friend I usually make it a point to bring along a girl. These girls are from all walks of life—models, show girls, starlets, actresses, tennis professionals, singers, heiresses and the daughters of the diplomats of most of the nations of the free world. All walks. They tend, however, to conform to a single physical type, and are almost always tall, tan, slender and blond, the girl from Ipanema as a wag friend of mine has it. They are always sensitive and intelligent and good at sailing and the Australian crawl. They are never blemished in any way, for even something like a tiny beauty mark on the inside of a thigh or above the shoulder blade is enough to put me off, and their breaths must be as sweet at three in the morning as they are at noon. (I never see a woman who is dieting for diet sours the breath.) Arm hair, of course, is repellent to me though a soft blond down is now and then acceptable. I know I sound a prig. I’m not. I am—well, classical, drawn by perfection as to some magnetic, Platonic pole, idealism and beauty’s true North.。
第23届韩素音青年翻译奖竞赛参考译文2
摩天大楼指数——如影随形的经济危机作为一种以巨大的经济力量为支撑的建筑物，摩天大楼常被民众和政客视为展示经济繁荣、社会进步的标志。
有些经济学家则持完全相反的看法，认为摩天大楼的出现，特别是摩天大楼的纪录被刷新，往往预示着经济即将衰退。
“高楼建成之日，即是市场衰退之时”，这是德意志银行的证券分析师安德鲁•劳伦斯于1999年发表的判言。
2006年2月15日，雷曼兄弟公司在北京召开全球经济会议，其全球首席经济学家卢埃林向我国客户提及“摩天大楼指数”的预言：“如果全球有发生经济危机的可能性，那很可能会在2007年或2008年。
”雷曼的首席经济学家预见了2007年到2008年的经济危机，但却不曾想到，雷曼的百年基业正是在这场危机中化为泡影。
对于经济而言，摩天大楼是荣耀还是诅咒？其与经济危机之间是否真的存在这样密切的联系呢？1999年，安德鲁•劳伦斯经过研究验证了摩天大楼与经济危机的关联，并将这种关联称为“摩天大楼指数”。
每一幢刷新世界纪录的摩天大楼的崛起，往往都伴随着经济的衰退。
自20世纪初以来，全球共出现了四轮摩天大楼热，而每一次，都伴随着经济危机或金融动荡。
20世纪20年代，美国经济转好，证券市场再度空前繁荣，民用、商用房产建设高歌猛进。
这期间，三座刷新纪录的摩天大楼先后兴建。
纽约的华尔街40号、克莱斯勒大厦和帝国大厦相继于1929年至1931年的三年中落成，但随之而来的不是新的繁荣，而是空前的大萧条。
在经历了被美国人称之为“黄金时代”的20世纪60年代强劲、持续的经济繁荣后，纽约的世贸中心和芝加哥的西尔斯大厦开始兴建。
1972年和1974年，两座再次刷新世界纪录的摩天大楼相继落成，随后，全球经济发生了严重滞胀。
摩天大楼与经济危机的关联如此密切，很难用巧合来理解，那么究竟是什么原因让经济危机总是与摩天大楼如影随形呢？首先，人性使然。
人性当中有盲目自信的一面。
具体体现在对客观事物认识不足，偏执于对事物的主观看法上。
韩素音翻译大赛详解
比赛介绍：韩素音青年翻译大赛详解韩素音其人：韩素音，是中国籍亚欧混血女作家伊丽莎白·柯默（Elisabeth Comber）的笔名，原名周光湖（Rosalie Elisabeth Kuanghu Chow）。
她的主要作品取材于20世纪中国生活和历史，主要用英语、法语进行写作，1952年，韩素音用英文写就的自传体小说《瑰宝》（A Many Splendoured Thing）一出版即在西方世界引起轰动，奠定了她在国际文坛上的地位。
1955年，美国20世纪福克斯公司把《瑰宝》搬上银幕，译名《生死恋》（Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing）。
韩素音女士现居瑞士。
韩素音青年翻译奖：《中国翻译》杂志从1986年开始举办青年“有奖翻译”活动，1989年韩素音女士访华，提供了一笔赞助基金，以此设立了“韩素音青年翻译奖”。
至2010年，“韩素音青年翻译奖”竞赛已经举办了二十二届，是目前中国翻译界组织时间最长、规模最大、影响最广的翻译大赛。
每年获奖人员来自社会各界，比赛并非是从所有译文中选出最好的就评为第一名，很多时候会出现第一名空缺的现象，因为评委组是按照严格的标准来筛选译文，没有最优秀的，第一名的位置就会空缺，由此可见韩素音翻译大赛的权威性和严谨性。
参与方式：韩素音青年翻译大赛由中国译协《中国翻译》编辑部主办（/），每届比赛设英译汉和汉译英两部分，每部分给出一篇要求翻译的文章，参赛者可以只选择一项，或者两项都参与。
注意，参赛者年龄为45岁以下——因为是青年翻译比赛。
参赛规则、竞赛原文和报名表会刊登在每年第一期，也即一月份的《中国翻译》杂志上，中国译协网站上也会有通知，大致规则如下：1. 参赛译文须独立完成。
参赛者在大赛截稿之日前需妥善保存参赛译文的著作权，不可在书报刊、网络等任何媒体公布自己的参赛译文，否则将被取消参赛资格并承担由此造成的一切后果。
2. 参赛译文请用空白A4纸打印（中文宋体、英文Times New Roman，小四，1.5倍行距）。
第二十七届韩素音青年翻译比赛汉译英优秀奖的译文教学内容
保护古村落就是保护“根性文化”To Preserve “Ancient Villages”, to Protect the “Roots of Culture”传统村落是指拥有物质形态和非物质形态文化遗产，具有较高的历史、文化、科学、艺术、社会、经济价值的村落。
但近年来，随着城镇化快速推进，以传统村落为代表的传统文化正在淡化，乃至消失。
对传统村落历史建筑进行保护性抢救，并对传统街巷和周边环境进行整治，可防止传统村落无人化、空心化。
“Traditional villages” refer to those with tangible and intangible cultural heritages and of high historic, cultural, scientific, artistic, social and economic value. But in recent years, traditional cultures represented by traditional villages have been fading away or even dying out with rapid urbanization. In order to prevent those villages from being uninhabited or hollowed out, we must protect historic buildings at risk there, restore the old streets and lanes, and renovate their surroundings.古村落与其说是老建筑，倒不如说是一座座承载了历史变迁的活建筑文化遗产，任凭世事变迁，斗转星移，古村落依然岿然不动，用无比顽强的生命力向人们诉说着村落的沧桑变迁，尽管曾经酷暑寒冬，风雪雨霜，但是古老的身躯依然支撑着生命的张力，和生生不息的人并肩生存，从这点上说，沧桑的古村落也是一种无形的精神安慰。
第二十四届韩素音青年翻译奖竞赛参赛规则及原文
中国译协《中国翻译》编辑部与江苏人文环境艺术设计研究院（中国译协江苏培训中心）联合举办第二十四届韩素音青年翻译奖竞赛。
具体参赛规则如下：一、本届竞赛分别设立英译汉和汉译英两个奖项，参赛者可任选一项或同时参加两项竞赛。
二、《中国翻译》2012年第1期以及中国译协网（）韩素音青年翻译奖专栏刊登竞赛规则、竞赛原文；参赛报名表请到中国翻译协会网站韩素音青年翻译奖专栏下载。
三、参赛者年龄：45岁以下(1967年1月1日后出生)。
四、参赛译文须独立完成，杜绝抄袭现象，一经发现，将取消参赛资格。
请参赛者在大赛截稿之日前妥善保存参赛译文，请勿在书报刊、网络等任何媒体公布自己的参赛译文，否则将被取消参赛资格并承担由此造成的一切后果。
五、参赛译文和参赛报名表格式要求：参赛译文应为WORD电子文档，中文宋体、英文Times New Roman字体，全文小四号字，1.5倍行距，文档命名格式为“XXX（姓名）英译汉”或“XXX（姓名）汉译英”。
参赛报名表文档命名格式为“XXX（姓名）英译汉参赛报名表”或“XXX（姓名）汉译英参赛报名表”。
译文正文内请勿书写译者姓名、地址等任何个人信息，否则将被视为无效译文。
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第十七届“韩素音青年翻译奖”赛(汉译英)中文原文及参考译文和解析
老来乐Delights in Growing Old六十整岁望七十岁如攀高山。
不料七十岁居然过了。
又想八十岁是难于上青天，可望不可即了。
岂知八十岁又过了。
老汉今年八十二矣。
这是照传统算法，务虚不务实。
现在不是提倡尊重传统吗 ?At the age of sixty I longed for a life span of seventy, a goal as difficult as a summit to be reached. Who would expect that I had reached it? Then I dreamed of living to be eighty, a target in sight but as inaccessible as Heaven. Out of my anticipation, I had hit it. As a matter of fact, I am now an old man of eighty-two. Such longevity is a grant bestowed by Nature; though nominal and not real, yet it conforms to our tradition. Is it not advocated to pay respect to nowadays?老年多半能悟道。
孔子说 “天下有道”。
老子说 “道可道”。
《圣经》说“太初有道”。
佛教说“邪魔外道”。
我老了，不免胡思乱想，胡说八道，自觉悟出一条真理 : 老年是广阔天地，是可以大有作为的。
An old man is said to understand the Way most probably: the Way of good administration as put forth by Confucius, the Way that can be explained as suggested by Laotzu, the Word (Way) in the very beginning as written in the Bible and the Way of pagans as denounced by the Buddhists. As I am growing old, I can't help being given to flights of fancy and having my own Way of creating stories. However I have come to realize the truth: my old age serves as a vast world in which I can still have my talents employed fully and developed completely.七十岁开始可以诸事不做而拿退休金，不愁没有一碗饭吃，自由自在，自得其乐。
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On IrritabilityIrritability is the tendency to get upset for reasons that seem – to other people – to be pretty minor. Your partner asks you how work went and the way they ask makes you feel intensely agitated. Your partner is putting knives and forks on the table before dinner and you mention (not for the first time) that the fork should go on the left hand side, not the right. They then immediately let out a huge sigh and sweep the cutlery onto the floor and tell you that you can xxxx-ing do it yourself if you know better. It was the most minor of criticisms and technically quite correct. And now they’ve exploded.There is so much irritability around and it exacts a huge daily cost on our collective lives, so we deserve to get a lot more curious about it: what is really going on for the irritable person? Why, really, are they getting so agitated? And instead of blaming them for getting het up about “little things”, we should do them the honour of working out why, in fact, these things may not be so minor after all.The journey begins by recognising the role of fear in irritability in couples. Behind most outbursts are cack-handed attempts to teach the other person something. There are things we’d like to point out, flaws that we can discern, remarks w e feel we really must make, but our awareness of how to proceed is panicked and hasty. We give cack-handed, mean speeches, which bear no faith in the legitimacy (even the nobility) of the act of imparting advice. And when our partners are on the receiving end of these irritable “lessons”, they of course swiftly grow defensive and brittle in the face of suggestions which seem more like mean-minded and senseless assaults on their very natures rather than caring, gentle attempts to address troublesome aspects of joint life.The prerequisite of calm in a teacher is a degree of indifference as to the success or failure of the lesson. One naturally wants for things to go well, but if an obdurate pupil flunks trigonometry, it is – at base – their problem. Tempers can stay even because individual students do not have very much power over teachers’ lives. Fortunately, as not caring too much turns out to be a critical aspect of successful pedagogy.Yet this isn’t an option open to the fearful, irritable lover. They feel ineluctably led to deliver their “lessons” in a cataclysmic, frenzied manner (the door slams very loudly indeed) not because they are insane or vile (though one could easily draw theseconclusions) so much as because they are terrified; terrified of spoiling what remains of their years on the planet in the company of someone who it appears cannot in any way understand a pivotal point about conversation, or cutlery, or the right time to order a taxi.One knows intuitively, when teaching a child, that only the utmost care and patience will ever work: one must never shout, one has to use extraordinary tact, one has to make ten compliments for every one negative remark and one must leave oneself plenty of time…All this wisdom we reliably forget in lov e’s classroom, sadly because increasing the level of threat seldom hastens development. We do not grow more reasonable, more accepting of responsibility and more accurate about our weaknesses when our pride has been wounded, our integrity is threatened and our self-esteem has been violated.The complaint against the irritable person is that they are getting worked up over “nothing”. But symbols offer a way of seeing how a detail can stand for something much bigger and more serious. The groceries placed on the wrong table are not upsetting at all in themselves. But symbolically they mean your partner doesn’t care about domestic order; they muddle things up; they are messy. Or the question about one’s day is experienced as a symbol of interrogation, a lack o f privacy and a humiliation (because one’s days rarely go well enough).The solution is, ideally, to concentrate on what the bigger issue is. Entire philosophies of life stir and collide beneath the surface of apparently petty squabbles. Irritations are the outward indications of stifled debates between competing conceptions of existence. It’s to the bigger themes we need to try to get.In the course of discussions, one might even come face-to-face with that perennially surprising truth about relationships: that the other person is not an extension of oneself that has, mysteriously, gone off message. They are that most surprising of things, a different person, with a psyche all of their own, filled with a perplexing number of subtle, eccentric and unforeseen reasons for thinking as they do.The decoding may take time, perhaps half an hour or more of concentrated exploration for something that had until then seemed as if it would more rightfully deserve an instant.We pay a heavy price for this neglect; every conflict that ends in sour stalemate is a blocked capillary within the heart of love. Emotions will find other ways to flow for now, but with the accumulation of unresolved disputes, pathways will fur and possibilities for trust and generosity narrow.A last point. It may just be sleep or food: when a baby is irritable, we rarely feel the need to preach about self-control and a proper sense of proportion. It’s not simply that we fear the infant’s intellect might not quite be up to it, but because we have a much better explanation of what is going on. We know that they’re acting this way –and getting bothered by any little thing – because they are tired, hungry, too hot or having some challenging digestive episode.The fact is, though, that the same physiological causes get to us all our lives. When we are tired, we get upset more easily; when we feel very hungry, it takes less to bother us. But it is immensely difficult to transfer the lesson in generosity (and accuracy) that we gain around to children and apply it to someone with a degree in business administration or a pilot’s license, or to whom we have been married for three-and-a-half years.We should try to see irritability for what it actually is: a confused, inarticulate, often shameful attempt to get us to understand how much someone is suffering and how urgently they need our help. We should – when we can manage it – attempt to help them out.。