英语单词大师：What Is the Story of Your Life?

 Welcome to WORDMASTER. I'm Adam Phillips, sitting in for Avi Arditti and Rosanne Skirble. See if you can identify what these three sentences have in common:

Found true love. Married someone else.

Young, skinny: ridiculed¹. Old, skinny: envied.

And one I can relate to:

It gets lonely, behind a microphone.

The answer is: they are all self-contained memoirs³, and they each contain just six words. They are among the more than fifteen thousand six-word memoirs submitted to Smith Magazine, an online journal devoted⁴ to storytelling. In late 2006, journal editors invited readers to send in their own six-word creations.

Now, 832 of those little gems⁵ have been collected into a book called "Not Quite What I Was Planning." Our guests today, Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith, both of Smith Magazine, co-edited the volume, which is the first of several planned.

First, tell me Rachel, what is your working definition of a memoir²? RACHEL FERSHLEISER: "A memoir is any story that encapsulates your life, what you remember, what's important to you. And that's why this six-word form is so wonderful, because it helps you distill⁶ what's really important. Some people choose to encompass⁷ everything. So if you look at the title of the book, Not Quite What I Was Planning -- which was a six-word memoir -- that can pretty much apply to a whole life and almost anyone's life."On the other hand, you can have something like John Bettencourt's six-memoir: One tooth. One cavity. Life's cruel. And that takes one tiny aspect of a person's life and expands it to say more than that one tiny detail might say.

LARRY SMITH: "He's saying you know, I got a bad deal, life is cruel. In the same moment, I'm laughing. I'm smirking⁸ at it. And that's the thing about the six-word memoir form: you really can look at a specific moment that may have affected⁹ your whole life. For example: Paul Bellows¹⁰ -- like most of our contributors, an unknown person that came through our site. His six-word memoir: Never should have have bought that ring. That tells a whole story about a moment in his life and about a life regret."RACHEL FERSHLEISER: "When we put the challenge out there -- and we didn't really know what we'd get back -- we thought people would be funny; they would be clever; they would be pithy¹¹. But I don't think we really understood how deep they'd be able to go. And these memoirs are so diverse and so honest. So many of them are about regret, about sadness, about loneliness, about mistakes that you've made. And people put it right out there. They put their names on it. They were so happy to share it.

"And I burst into tears looking through the contest entries. Ronald Zalewsky says: Was father, boys died, still sad. That was a level of power I wasn't intending to get."AP: "I know your own six-word memoirs are in the book. After meeting you, Rachel, I'd say that your own contribution -- 'Bespectacled, besneakered, read and ran around' -- describes you pretty well. What's your memoir, Larry?"LARRY SMITH: "My own six-word memoir is quite simple: Big hair, big heart, big hurry. It's kind of playful, kind of fun, [and] no great masterful prose. But people respond to it and, most importantly, it's true to who I am."Hair is a common theme in the six-word memoir book. One of my favorites is by A.J. Jacobs: Born bald. Grew hair. Bald again.

RACHEL FERSHLEISER: "It's a beautiful little life cycle. One of my favorite six word memoirs is by Karen Franklin: Trains. Planes. Thumb. Then children come. Now thumb, of course, the word just really means a digit¹² on your hand. But if you think about that image of hitchhiking, of sticking your thumb out in the middle of the road and getting picked up and going who knows where, it's such an image of youth and freedom. And when you settle down and have babies, you are not traveling by thumb anymore. So I love that, with the one word thumb, she has actually communicated a whole lifestyle."Writing their memoirs has been a real beginning for many of the contributors, many of them were really wary¹³ about writing.

LARRY SMITH: "A blank page is very scary when you are writing your memoir or your autobiography¹⁴. A blank page that is filled with six words is not scary. You can write six words."  RACHEL FERSHLEISER: "This is a great way to get going with using words. If you are afraid to write, if your English isn't so good, it's a way to start, it's a way to learn, and it's a way to have fun."I've been talking today with Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser of Smith Magazine. They are co-editors of Not Quite What I Was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs readers submitted to them online, at smithmag.net.

By the way, Larry and Rachel are offering Wordmaster listeners five slots in their next volume. If you'd like your six-word memoir to be considered, send it to us at [email protected]. You never know until you try. Hey, that's also six words! For WORDMASTER, I'm Adam Phillips.

1 ridiculed   

v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Biosphere 2 was ultimately ridiculed as a research debade, as exfravagant pseudoscience. 生物圈2号最终被讥讽为科研上的大失败，代价是昂贵的伪科学。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She ridiculed his insatiable greed. 她嘲笑他的贪得无厌。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

3 memoirs   

n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数)

参考例句：

• Her memoirs were ghostwritten. 她的回忆录是由别人代写的。
• I watched a trailer for the screenplay of his memoirs. 我看过以他的回忆录改编成电影的预告片。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

5 gems   

growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长

参考例句：

• a crown studded with gems 镶有宝石的皇冠
• The apt citations and poetic gems have adorned his speeches. 贴切的引语和珠玑般的诗句为他的演说词增添文采。

6 distill   

vt.蒸馏，用蒸馏法提取，吸取，提炼

参考例句：

• This standard set determine the method of petroleum products distill.本标准规定了测定石油产品蒸馏的方法。
• Distill the crucial points of the book.从书中提炼出关键的几点。

7 encompass   

vt.围绕，包围；包含，包括；完成

参考例句：

• The course will encompass physics,chemistry and biology.课程将包括物理、化学和生物学。
• The project will encompass rural and underdeveloped areas in China.这项工程将覆盖中国的农村和不发达地区。

8 smirking   

v.傻笑( smirk的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Major Pendennis, fresh and smirking, came out of his bedroom to his sitting-room. 潘登尼斯少校神采奕奕，笑容可掬地从卧室来到起居室。 来自辞典例句
• The big doll, sitting in her new pram smirking, could hear it quite plainly. 大娃娃坐在崭新的童车里，满脸痴笑，能听得一清二楚。 来自辞典例句

9 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

10 bellows   

n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫

参考例句：

• His job is to blow the bellows for the blacksmith. 他的工作是给铁匠拉风箱。 来自辞典例句
• You could, I suppose, compare me to a blacksmith's bellows. 我想，你可能把我比作铁匠的风箱。 来自辞典例句

11 pithy   

adj.(讲话或文章)简练的

参考例句：

• Many of them made a point of praising the film's pithy dialogue.他们中很多人特别赞扬了影片精炼的对白。
• His pithy comments knocked the bottom out of my argument.他精辟的评论驳倒了我的论点。

12 digit   

n.零到九的阿拉伯数字，手指，脚趾

参考例句：

• Her telephone number differs from mine by one digit.她的电话号码和我的只差一个数字。
• Many animals have five digits.许多动物有5趾。

13 wary   

adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的

参考例句：

• He is wary of telling secrets to others.他谨防向他人泄露秘密。
• Paula frowned,suddenly wary.宝拉皱了皱眉头，突然警惕起来。

14 autobiography   

n.自传

参考例句：

• He published his autobiography last autumn.他去年秋天出版了自己的自传。
• His life story is recounted in two fascinating volumes of autobiography.这两卷引人入胜的自传小说详述了他的生平。