2021年经济学人 两性智慧-不完美的忠告(4)

Ms Whitehorn, meanwhile, dealt with the eternal worries of women that they were not elegant or organised enough. Her most famous column, in 1963, defended all slatterns who had ever safety-pinned a hem¹, changed their stockings in a taxi, or seized some item back from the dirty-clothes basket “because it had become, relatively², the cleaner thing”.

与此同时，怀特霍恩正在处理女性永恒的困扰：不够优雅，不够有条理。她最著名的专栏是在1963年，为所有懒惰女人辩护——她们用别针别住裙摆，在出租车里换长筒袜，或是继续穿脏衣篮里的衣服，“因为相对来说，脏衣服相较更干净”。

She implied she was a slattern too, though Roedean, Cambridge, her dress sense and her darkly posh voice rather gave the lie to that. But at devil-may-care-ness she did well.

她暗示自己也是一个邋遢的人，尽管她的尽管罗丁女中、剑桥大学、她的衣着品味和浓厚的上流社会腔调戳破了这一谎言。但不管怎样，她做得很好。

In “How to Survive Children” (she had two, chaotically³ balanced with work), she advised that bath-time went better after a glass of gin. As for housewifery, “no book of household management can ever tell you...how to begin. Or maybe I mean why.”

在《女人如何养孩子》(How to Survive Children)一书中(她有两个孩子，在工作和育儿中的混乱地平衡着)，她建议，喝一杯杜松子酒后洗澡会更舒适。至于家庭主妇，“没有一本家庭管理书籍能告诉你……如何开始。也许我的意思是为什么开始。”

Both columnists⁴ continued to a great age, thriving on long and generally happy marriages. Wisdom seemed to gather around them until both were national treasures. Their essential optimism was tempered: Dr Watsa’s by the beatings, abuse and unhappily arranged marriages he was told of, and could do nothing about; Ms Whitehorn’s by the feeling that sex had come to tyrannise relationships.

两位专栏作家都到了耄耋之年，他们的婚姻长久而美满。智慧的光环似乎笼罩在他们周围，直到这两个人都成了国宝级人物。他们重要的乐观情绪被淡化了：沃特萨医生听闻那些遭受殴打、虐待和不幸的包办婚姻时，他无能为力；怀特霍恩女士认为性已经成为了一种专制的关系。

But the numbers of people they had braced⁵ with confidence were legion, and occasionally their advice was similar. To a woman worried about not being a virgin⁶ on her wedding night, Dr Watsa wrote: “Don’t worry, your husband won’t notice.”

但他们满怀信心迎接的困惑者不计其数，有时他们的建议也大致相同。对于一位在新婚之夜担心自己不是处女的女士，沃特萨医生写道:“别担心，你的丈夫不会注意到的。

While to a young bedsitter hostess, cooking for a man, Ms Whitehorn breezed: “Don’t apologise, and never ask ‘Is it all right?’”

当怀特霍恩女士回复一位为男人做饭的年轻女士时，她轻松地说:“无需道歉，永远不要问‘是这样做吗?’”

1 hem   

n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制

参考例句：

• The hem on her skirt needs sewing.她裙子上的褶边需要缝一缝。
• The hem of your dress needs to be let down an inch.你衣服的折边有必要放长1英寸。

2 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

3 chaotically   

参考例句：

• His thoughts churned chaotically in his brain like snowflakes whirling about in the north wind. 头脑里，情思弥漫纷乱像个北风飘雪片的天空。 来自汉英文学 - 围城
• In metal the atoms are arranged not chaotically but in even rows, forming a crystal lattice. 在金属里，原子并不是杂乱无章地排列而是排成平整的行列，构成一个晶格。 来自辞典例句

4 columnists   

n.专栏作家( columnist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This story will be more fodder for the gossip columnists. 这个传闻会是闲谈专栏作家的又一素材。
• The columnists coined the phrase \"to broderick\", meaning to rough up. 专栏作家们杜撰出一个新词“布罗德里克”意思是“动武”、“打架”。 来自辞典例句

5 braced   

adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来

参考例句：

• They braced up the old house with balks of timber. 他们用梁木加固旧房子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The house has a wooden frame which is braced with brick. 这幢房子是木结构的砖瓦房。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。