迷你对话学地道口语第818期:认输而投降

 　　Subject : I want to throw the towel.

　　第一， 迷你对话

　　A: It is said that there is big crush in the ticket office right now.

　　听说现在买票的人把售票处挤得水泄不通。

　　B: I want to throw in the towel.

　　我不想买了。

　　第二，地道表达

　　throw in the towel

　　1. 解词释义

　　Towel 是“毛巾”的意思。Throw in the towel的字面意思是“扔毛巾”，比喻为“认输”“投降”。用它表示“承认失败”了的意思。在俚语词典中解释如下： (From boxing, where this is done by a boxer's trainer to stop the fight.) to signal that one is going to quit; to quit. 从英文解释中，我们可以看到这个俚语来自于拳击比赛中，教练看到自己的选手必输无疑，就会向地上扔毛巾，表示认输了。

　　2. 拓展范例

　　e.g. He vowed¹ he would never throw in the towel.

　　他发誓决不认输。

　　e.g. We're never going to persuade them so we might as well throw in the towel now.

　　我们决不会说服他们,因此我们不妨现在就认输。

　　e.g. The game is not over yet! Don't throw in the towel so soon!

　　比赛还没结束呢! 别这麽快就认输!

　　e.g. When John could stand no more of Mary's bad temper, he threw in the towel and left.

　　当约翰实在无法忍受Mary的暴躁脾气时，他放弃和她的感情了，和她分手了。

　　第三，视野拓展

　　同意短语：throw in the sponge

　　e.g. Don't give up now! It's too soon to throw in the sponge.

　　不要这么早放弃！这样太早认输了。

　　e.g. The union was forced to throw in the towel and settle their bitter dispute with the company.

　　公会被迫放弃，只能和公司解决他们之间激烈的争端。

　　第四，咬文嚼字

　　1. 表示某处人非常拥挤，拥挤得水泄不通，可以用到情景剧中的句式：There is a big crush somewhere. Crush 在这里是“拥挤的人群”的，a big crush的意思则是描绘出人山人海，挤得个水泄不通的场景。

　　2. Right now在这里的确切意思是此时此刻，现在。例如：

　　I'll lay odds² that Dean is at your office right now.

　　我敢打赌迪安现在就在你办公室。

　　Here, listen, they're talking about it on Radio-Paris right now.

　　嘿，听，巴黎电台正在谈论这事呢。

1 vowed   

起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He vowed quite solemnly that he would carry out his promise. 他非常庄严地发誓要实现他的诺言。
• I vowed to do more of the cooking myself. 我发誓自己要多动手做饭。

2 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？