综英课文释义

Unit 1

1.inherited from parents), shaped by environment, and influenced by chance events.

Who we are is determined by three things: First, our genes, or what our parents have given us, our legacy; second, environment; and third, luck or opportunities.

2. college education.

Actually, if the students choose to go to college to continue their education, they will face an even more serious struggle between the desire to be independent and the need to depend on the financial support of their parents.

3.College students need to stand back and see where they are in the independence/dependence struggle.

(In the face of the arrays of challenges,) it is necessary for college students to avoid getting too emotionally involved in the struggle and try to get a clear idea of their situation.

4. . Probably nothing can make students feel lower or higher emotionally than the way they are relating to whomever they are having a romantic relationship with.

Perhaps nothing can make a student experience such a big emotional change except his/her relationships with his/helover.

Unit 2

1.I realized that while my satisfaction in the sheer act of reading had not abated in the least, the world was often as hostile, or as blind, to that joy as had been my girlfriends.

I realized that while my joy in reading had not

weakened a bit, the world was just as blind or hostile to my joy as my girlfriends had been.

2. turning away from human contact is suspect, especially one that interferes with the go-out-and-get-going ethos America is a nation that highly values sociability and community, and believes that being alone will naturally lead to being a loner, and being a loner is sure to end up being a loser. Therefore if someone separates himself or herself from other people, people have a good reason to suspect him or her, especially if it prevents that person from going out and starting to get things done, which is the most important part of the American character.

3. Reading for pleasure, spurred on by some interior compulsion, became as suspect as getting on the subway to ride aimlessly from place to place.

Some people did not believe that there was such a thing as reading for pleasure driven by a strong desire from the heart. They regarded it as an idle, aimless, meaningless occupation just like driving from place to place aimlessly on the subway.

4. And in circles devoted to literary criticism…there was sometimes a kind of horrible exclusivity surrounding discussions of reading.

When literary critics discussed the problem of reading, they sometimes showed the terrible attitude that reading was a right that only belonged to the elite, not to be shared with other people.

Unit 3

1. I am just as ignorant for all your telling me.

I am still as ignorant as before of the names of flowers although you had told me.

2. But now, as he spoke, that memory faded. His was the truer.

Now, that memory about the ridiculous scene gradually disappeared. His memory was more accurate. They did have a good time that afternoon.

3. He was certainly far better looking now than he had been then. He had lost all that dreamy vagueness and indecision. Now he had the air of a man who has found his place in life.

He was no longer impractical or unrealistic and uncertain what to do with his life.

4. Now he had the air of a man who has found his place in life.

At that time, the man was much younger, full of dreams, very impractical, very unclear about what he should do with his life. But now he looks like a man who has a successful career.

5. As he spoke, …she felt the strange beast that had slumbered so long within her bosom stir, stretch itself, yawn, prick up its ears, and suddenly bound to its feet, and fix its longing, hungry stare upon those far away places.

As he spoke, she felt that her lifelong dream of traveling around the world, which had been lying at the back of her mind all these years because her health

conditions had not allowed her to do that, now began to wake up. It was just like a strange beast waking up with longing and hungry eyes for those wonderful places.

6. As he spoke she lifted her head as though she drank something; the strange beast in her bosom began to purr.

when she heard those beautiful words, she felt

good. And her long-buried love for him seemed to wake up again.

Unit 4

1. Lying on the bare earth, …he looked like a beggar

or a lunatic.

He was lying on the ground which was not covered with anything, and he didn’t wear shoes but wore a beard and kept his body half-naked, so he looked like a 2. He had emptied his bowels or passed water like a dog at the roadside.

3. Sometimes they threw bits of food, and got scant

thanks; sometimes a mischievous pebble, and got a shower of stones and abuse.

Sometimes people would throw bits of food to him, but he hardly thanked them at all. Sometimes they would throw a pebble at him for fun, but get a shower of stones and a stream of abuse in return.

4. He knew they were mad, each in a different way.

They amused him.

He knew that other people were all insane in this way or another. For example, some were mad about money;

some were mad about power; some were mad about sex, etc. Their folly was funny to him.

5. It was not…even a squatter’s hut

He thought that everybody’s life was too complicated, too costly, and thus gave them too much pressure. (He argued that people should live a simplest life possible.)

6. He spent much of his life in the rich, lazy, corrupt Greek city of Corinth, mocking and satirizing its

people, and occasionally one of them.

He chose to live among the wealthy, lazy and dishonest citizens of Corinth for many of his years, ridiculing and criticizing them. And he occasionally persuading one of them into adopting his belief.

7. He was not the first to inhabit such a thing. But he

was the first who ever did so by choice, out of principle.

He was not the first to live in a cask. Yet he was the first to do so because he wanted to, based on his principle, not because he was forced to by necessity.

8. But he taught chiefly by example.

Diogenes sometimes taught by talking to people, but he mainly taught by setting an example for others to follow.

9. Live without conventions, which are artificial and

false; escape complexities and extravagances:

only so can you live a free life.

Only when you get rid of those man-imposed and false conventions and avoid living complex and luxurious lives can you live a real, free life.

10. In order to procure a quantity of false, perishable

goods he has sold the only true, lasting good, his own independence.

People all toil to get only those material things that are false and fleeting, but at the sacrifice of their own everlasting independence.

11. His life’s aim was clear to him: it was ―to restamp

the currency‖: to take the clean metal of human life, to erase the old false conventional markings, and to imprint it with its true values.

His purpose in life was clear to him: it was ―to reprint the coins.‖ Human life can be taken as the clean coins which are imprinted with false markings. He was to remove the false markings and print the true values on it. In other words, his aim in life was to call on people to reject the false, conventional way of life and return to the simple and natural life.

12. Diogenes took his old cask and began to roll it up

and down. ―When you are all so busy,‖ he said, ― I feel I ought to do something!‖

When the Corinthians were busy preparing for the coming war, Diogenes rolled his cask up and down to ridicule their silly behavior.

13. Only twenty, Alexander was far older and wiser

than his years.

Alexander looked far older than a man of his age

normally does, and was much wiser than a man of his age normally is.

14. ―Yes,‖ said the Dog. ―Stand to one side. You’re

blocking the sunlight.‖

When Alexander asked Diogenes whether there was anything he could do for him, he of course was

thinking of money, power, a job, a decent house or a warm garment.

Unit 5

1. There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.

Once upon a time there was a town in the central part of America where all living things seemed to co-exist peacefully with their environment.

2. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that background of pines.

In autumn, the oak, maple and birch trees turned yellow, red or brown, thus making a beautiful show of colors against the dark green of pine trees.

3. The rapidity of change follows the impetuous pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature.

Man is changing nature rapidly while nature adjusts to the changes slowly. Therefore adjustment can never keep up with change, and a new balance between living things and their environment can hardly be reached.

4. The whole process of spraying seems caught up in an endless spiral.

The more insecticides are sprayed, the less effective they will become in destroying the ―pests‖. Then more deadly

chemicals will be developed to kill them. This process will go on endlessly.

5. One important natural check is a limit on the amount of suitable habitat for each species.

one important check mechanism of nature itself is to restrict the living area of each animals or plants.

6. Insect problems arose with the intensification of agriculture – the devotion of immense acreage to a single crop.

Insect problems resulted from the intensification of agriculture, that is, the practice of planting a single crop on a large area of cropland.

7. Obviously then, an insect that lives on wheat can build up its population to much higher levels on a farm devoted to wheat than on one in which wheat is intermingled with other crops to which the insect is not adapted.

Obviously then, an insect that lives on wheat can build up its population to much higher levels on a farm devoted to wheat than on one in which wheat is intermingled with other crops to which the insect is not adapted.

8. In new territories, out of reach of the restraining hand of natural enemies that kept down its numbers in its native land, an invading plant or animal is able to become enormously abundant.

when a plant or animal is introduced into a new area, it can multiply rapidly, since it has broken away from the threats of its natural enemies in its native land.

Unit 6

1. Simply make all drugs available and sell them at cost.

Just make all drugs easy to buy and sell them without profit.

2. Don’t say that marijuana is addictive and

dangerous when it is neither, unlike ―speed‖,

which kills most unpleasantly, or heroin, which is addictive and difficult to kick.

Don’t exaggerate the harmful effect of marijuana. It is neither addictive nor dangerous, as is ofte n described. Differentiate it from ―speed‖ and heroin. ―Speed‖ causes death while heroin is difficult to stop using once a person is addicted to it.

3. Along with exhortation and warning, it might be good for our citizens to recall that the United

States was the creation of men who believed that each man has the right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere with his neighbor’s pursuit of happiness.

While urging people not to take drugs and warning them of the dangers, we should remind our citizens that their country was created by the early European settlers who believed that a man has the right to do whatever he wishes to his own life as long as what he doesn’t prevent his neighbor from seeking happiness.

4. Now one can hear that the warning rumble begin: if everyone is allowed to take drugs Zombies.

Now we hear those people who are against legalization giving us warnings. They say if drugs are legalized,

everyone will become addicts, and our nation will become one near to living death.

5. It is a lucky thing for the American moralist that we have no public memory of anything that happened last Tuesday.

Most Americans have a bad memory and don’t

remember anything that happened in the past. This is a lucky thing for those people who advocate forbidding drugs (for if they remembered what Prohibition in the

1920s resulted in, they would see that prohibition of drugs will not be feasible, either).

6. Last year when the supply of marijuana was slightly reduced by the Feds, the pushers got the kids hooked on heroin and deaths increased dramatically

Last year when the FBI got tough with drug dealing, and the supply of marijuana went slightly down, young marijuana users had to shift to a more harmful drug—heroin. Pushers got them addicted, and the number of people who died of overdose went up sharply.

7. Finally, if there was no money in it, the Bureau of Narcotics would wither away, something they are not about to do without a struggle.

Finally, if the Mafia couldn’t get money out of legal drug dealing when drugs are legal, the Bureau of Narcotics would be disbanded. This is something the government will surely try hard to prevent because the people working in the Bureau would lose their jobs.

8. Last year the debate was stirred anew when

Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke called for a

serious national debate on the subject.

Last year Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke suggested a nation-wide debate on legalization, and it started off another debate.

9. Drugs are a symptom of deeper ills in certain segments of our society, particularly the

improverished segments.

Widespread use of drugs is a sign of more serious social problems for some groups of the population, especially for the poor.

10. You must start cracking down hard on users. You must start dealing with users much more harshly.