新闻热词:笨蛋 spaz

时间:2008-07-12 08:15:07 来源:英语学习网站

日前,被称为“丛林老虎”的高尔夫球霸主泰格·伍兹,在名人赛上取得并列第3名的成绩后,因用“笨蛋”来形容自己最后一轮时的推杆而遭致媒体谴责,伍兹最后不得不公开道歉。您可能会问,一句“笨蛋”,至于吗?

The American who is the world No 1 player, who tied for third place three strokes behind winner Phil Mickelson, was criticized for using the term "spaz " to describe his poor putting in the final round.

When asked about his play on the last day at Augusta, Woods replied: "I putted atrociously today. Once I got on the greens, I was a spaz."

报道中的spaz在美国俚语中指“笨家伙”,其近义词为“clumsy;inept”(笨拙的;无能的),因此,对于美国人来说,spaz并没有侮辱意。

但在英国,spaz是一种对“痉挛的瘫痪病人和大脑性麻痹病患者”的侮辱性称呼。用英国残疾人组织的话来说:“虽然在美国,spaz这个词没有冒犯别人的意思,但在英国,伍兹的言论伤害了他的球迷们,不管这些球迷是健康人还是残疾人。”

看来,我们在使用英语词汇时,还真得注意英美两国的差异。请看一个例句:

Dave ran around screaming with his tongue hanging out like a spaz. 这句话摘自一本英国小说, spaz在这里意味“a person that acts insane or mentally retarded”,可翻译为:戴夫伸着舌头边跑边叫,像个疯子一样。

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