经济学人328:啤酒的饮用 形状改变一切

 　　Science and technology

　　科学技术

　　Beer drinking

　　啤酒的饮用

　　Shape up!

　　形状改变一切！

　　What sort of glass you drink from predicts how fast you drink

　　喝酒有多快？看杯子就知道

　　WOULD you like that in a straight or a jug¹, sir? was once a common response to British pubgoers' request for a pint².

　　在过去，泡吧的英国佬如果要来杯一品脱的啤酒，通常都要回答这样一个问题，“先生，你要哪一种杯子乘啤酒，净饮杯还是扎啤杯？

　　2_副本.jpgLike the Lilliputians inGulliver's Travels, who argued whether a boiled egg should be opened at the pointed³ or the rounded end, beer drinkers were adamant⁴ that only from their preferred shape of glass did their tipple⁵ taste best.

　　正如《格列佛游记》中小人国里的人对于吃鸡蛋应该先从哪端打破而争论不休一样，喝啤酒的人同样固执的认为，只有用他们喜欢的杯型喝酒，味道才带劲。

　　Straight-sided glasses—sometimes with a bulge⁶ a little below the lip—have largely won the day.

　　净饮杯在今天广受欢迎，这种杯子的杯口有时会凸出稍低的一小块来。

　　Jugs—squat cylinders⁷ of dimpled glass equipped with handles—are now rare.

　　而扎啤杯，圆柱形的杯身短浅，且外围被修饰成一个个小酒窝，还带有把手，但这种杯子在今天已经很少见了。

　　But that is probably because straight glasses are easier for bar staff to collect and stack, rather than because straight-glass lovers have persuaded their fellow-drinkers of the virtue⁸ of their view.

　　这可能是因为，对于酒保来说，净饮杯更容易堆积和摆放，而不是因为净饮杯爱好者证明了他们观点的正确，以让酒友们信以为真。

　　The shape of a beer glass does, nevertheless, matter.

　　尽管如此，啤酒杯的外形的确很重要。

　　For a group of researchers at the University of Bristol have shown that it can regulate how quickly someone drinks.

　　布里斯托尔大学的一组研究者已经证实，酒杯的形状能够决定人喝酒的快慢。

　　Angela Attwood and her colleagues asked 160 undergraduates—80 women and 80 men—to do one of four things: drink beer out of a straight glass; drink beer out of a flute⁹; or drink lemonade from one of these two sorts of glass.

　　安吉拉阿特伍德和她的同事们曾要求160名大学生—男女各80人，从四件事中选择一件来做，它们分别是：用净饮杯喝啤酒，用笛型杯喝啤酒；或者选用这两种杯子之一盛柠檬汁喝。

　　To complicate¹⁰ matters further, some of the glasses were full whereas others were half-full.

　　为了让事情变得更加复杂，其中的一些杯子是满的，而另一些只盛有一半饮品。

　　Though, as is common practice in studies of this sort, participants were misled about its true nature, and were shown films and asked to do a language test afterwards, to support this misdirection, what Dr Attwood and her team were really interested in was how quickly the various drinks would be drunk.

　　虽然和做这类研究所惯用的手法一样，实验过程掩盖了本质，对参与者进行了误导，之后他们被带去看电影，做语言测试；而进行这种误导是因为，阿特伍德教授和她的团队真正感兴趣的是不同杯子里的饮品被喝光的速度。

　　The answer was that a full straight glass of beer was polished off in 11 minutes, on average.

　　实验得出的答案是：满满一杯用净饮杯乘的啤酒，平均11分钟就被喝完了。

　　A full flute, by contrast, was down the hatch in seven, which was also the amount of time it took to drink a full glass of lemonade, regardless of the type of vessel¹¹.

　　相比之下，用笛型杯盛满的一杯酒，7分钟就见底了。而不管用哪种杯子，同样7分钟，一满杯子的柠檬汁就会能被喝光。

　　If a glass started half-full, however, neither its shape nor its contents mattered.

　　然而，如果一个杯子开始只倒满了一半，不管杯型如何，装的是什么饮品，

　　It was drunk in an average of five minutes.

　　喝完它平均只要5分钟。

　　Dr Attwood's hypothesis is that a beer drinker, wishing to pace himself through an evening, is monitoring the volume remaining in the glass, probably with reference to the halfway¹² mark.

　　阿特伍德博士提出的假设是：一位喝啤酒的人，想要一晚上自始自终控制自己喝多少酒的话，就会时刻关注杯子里剩余的酒量，可能他就是以杯子的中间点作为基准的。

　　A curved-sided glass, though, makes exercising such judgment¹³ hard—as she demonstrated by calling her volunteers back a week later and asking them to estimate from pictures how full various glasses were.

　　然而一个杯身倾斜的杯子，就让这种判断变得困难起来—正如阿特伍德所证明的那样，让参与她实验的志愿者在一个星期后回来，并且让他们仅凭图片来估计各种杯子倒满是个什么情况。

　　Most volunteers thought the halfway mark in the flute was lower than its true value, and if a volunteer had drunk from such a glass originally, the degree of misestimation correlated with how fast he had drunk.

　　大多数志愿者认为在笛型杯中，杯子所显示的中点要比它真实的中点要低，而如果一位志愿者一开始就用这种杯子喝酒，他对酒量的误判和他喝酒的速度将会一一对应。

　　If a glass is half-full to start with, however, this reference point is lost from the beginning.

　　但是如果一开始杯子只倒满了一半的话，这一参照点从最初就失去了意义。

　　The upshot, as Dr Attwood reports in the Public Library of Science, is that straight glasses have it.

　　正如艾特伍德在《公共科学图书馆》杂志中所做的报告一样，结果显示净饮杯可以证明这种假设。

　　Though beer flutes¹⁴ are not common in British pubs, her observation that the shape of a glass can affect how fast it is drunk from bears investigation¹⁵.

　　虽然用笛型杯喝啤酒在英国的酒吧里并不常见，而从她的观察报告中可以看出，一个杯子的形状能够影响喝啤酒的速度。

　　Both health campaigners and breweries¹⁶ would be interested in the results, though they would probably draw opposite conclusions about what is the best-shaped glass in which to serve a bevvy.

　　健康活动者和各啤酒厂都会对研究的结果感兴趣，不过关于用什么形状的杯子乘酒最好，两者可能会得出截然相反的结论。

1 jug   

n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂

参考例句：

• He walked along with a jug poised on his head.他头上顶着一个水罐，保持着平衡往前走。
• She filled the jug with fresh water.她将水壶注满了清水。

2 pint   

n.品脱

参考例句：

• I'll have a pint of beer and a packet of crisps, please.我要一品脱啤酒和一袋炸马铃薯片。
• In the old days you could get a pint of beer for a shilling.从前，花一先令就可以买到一品脱啤酒。

3 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

4 adamant   

adj.坚硬的，固执的

参考例句：

• We are adamant on the building of a well-off society.在建设小康社会这一点上，我们是坚定不移的。
• Veronica was quite adamant that they should stay on.维罗妮卡坚信他们必须继续留下去。

5 tipple   

n.常喝的酒；v.不断喝，饮烈酒

参考例句：

• My favourite tipple is a glass of port.我最喜欢喝的酒是波尔图葡萄酒。
• Scotch drinkers around the world tend to associate their favourite tipple with success and achievement.世界各地喝苏格兰威士忌的人，往往把他们最喜欢的这种烈酒，与成功和成就联系在一起。

6 bulge   

n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀

参考例句：

• The apple made a bulge in his pocket.苹果把他口袋塞得鼓了起来。
• What's that awkward bulge in your pocket?你口袋里那块鼓鼓囊囊的东西是什么？

7 cylinders   

n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物

参考例句：

• They are working on all cylinders to get the job finished. 他们正在竭尽全力争取把这工作干完。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• That jeep has four cylinders. 那辆吉普车有4个汽缸。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

9 flute   

n.长笛；v.吹笛

参考例句：

• He took out his flute, and blew at it.他拿出笛子吹了起来。
• There is an extensive repertoire of music written for the flute.有很多供长笛演奏的曲目。

10 complicate   

vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂

参考例句：

• There is no need to complicate matters.没有必要使问题复杂化。
• These events will greatly complicate the situation.这些事件将使局势变得极其复杂。

11 vessel   

n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管

参考例句：

• The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
• You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。

12 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

13 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

14 flutes   

长笛( flute的名词复数 )； 细长香槟杯（形似长笛）

参考例句：

• The melody is then taken up by the flutes. 接着由长笛奏主旋律。
• These flutes have 6open holes and a lovely bright sound. 笛子有6个吹气孔，奏出的声音响亮清脆。

15 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

16 breweries   

酿造厂，啤酒厂( brewery的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• In some cases, this is desirable, but most breweries prefer lighter-type beers. 在一些情况下，这是很理想的，但是大多数啤酒厂更倾向于生产酒度较低的啤酒。
• Currently, there are 58 breweries producing Snow Beeracross the country. 目前，全国共有58个雪花啤酒厂。