听播客学英语 78 大幅削减

 　　It has been more than two weeks since my last podcast. I have two excuses. The first is that I have had another bout¹ of flu – not badly, but enough to make it difficult to do anything like writing or recording² a podcast. My second excuse is much more exciting. I have just finished a project on which I have been working for several months. The computer programme, or software, which runs the Listen to English website is called LoudBlog. I have been rewriting LoudBlog, to add some new features. I have called the new programme PodHawk. If you are really interested, you can read all about PodHawk at www.podhawk.com.

　　Every day for the past couple of weeks, I have looked through the newspaper for a nice, light-hearted story that I could use in a podcast. But there have been no nice, light-hearted stories, only serious, depressing³ stories about the recession⁴ and unemployment. But yesterday I found some inspiration⁵. I was in a traffic jam, behind a bus. It was a number 37 bus, going from Birmingham to Solihull, but that is not important. On the back of the bus was the slogan “Up to every 5 minutes Monday to Saturday”.

　　Now, “up to every 5 minutes Monday to Saturday” is not very good grammar. And if you look up each word in a dictionary, it still won’t make any sense. “Up to” indicates a maximum. If you see road sign which says that you can park for “up to an hour”, it means that you may park your car for an hour, but not for longer. I know however what the bus company is trying to say. It wants to tell us that, on Mondays to Saturdays, there are buses every 5 minutes at some times of the day. At other times of the day, the buses run less often – maybe every 10 minutes or every 15 minutes. But the bus company wants to tell us only the good news – sometimes there is a bus every 5 minutes. So – “Up to every 5 minutes Monday to Saturday”.

　　In recent years, the phrase “up to” has become very common when people want to tell you only the good news and not the not-so-good news. For example, at this time of year, many of the shops in Britain have sales. They reduce their prices to try to persuade us to buy all the rubbish we refused to buy before Christmas. This year, there have been lots of sales, because of the recession. You will see signs in shop windows which say something like “Massive reductions⁶ – up to 50% off”. This means, “We have cut some of our prices. Some of the price cuts are big – 50% – but most of them are much smaller – maybe 10% – and some prices we have not cut at all.” It does sound so much better to say “Up to 50% off”, doesn’t it?

　　“Up to” is also a a favourite phrase in advertisements when they only want to tell us the good news. A car advertisement might say, for example, that the car has “up to 25% more space” or has “up to 30% better mileage“. An advert⁷ for a household cleaner might say that it has “up to 45% more cleaning power”. What is “cleaning power”? How can I measure it? “Up to 45% more cleaning power” really, really does not mean anything.

　　We have an expression in English, to “take something with a pinch⁸ of salt.” It means, to be a bit sceptical, a bit doubtful⁹, not to accept something “at its face value”. So, for example, Kevin tells Joanne about the truly amazing, truly wonderful things which his football team did at the match last Saturday. Joanne knows that Kevin often exaggerates¹⁰, and that she does not need to believe every detail of what he says. She takes Kevin’s story “with a pinch of salt”.

　　So, when you see “up to 50% off” or “up to 45% more cleaning power” or even “a bus up to every 5 minutes”, you know that they are only telling you the good news, and that you should take what they say with a pinch of salt.

1 bout   

n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛

参考例句：

• I was suffering with a bout of nerves.我感到一阵紧张。
• That bout of pneumonia enfeebled her.那次肺炎的发作使她虚弱了。

2 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

3 depressing   

a.令人沮丧的；令人忧愁的

参考例句：

• Laundromat is really depressing. 自助洗衣店真闷。
• The retrospect was depressing. 回想起来令人沮丧。

4 recession   

n.（工商业的）衷退（期），萧条（期）

参考例句：

• Manufacturing fell sharply under the impact of the recession.受到经济萧条的影响，制造业急剧衰退。
• A rise in interest rates plunged Britain deeper into recession.利率的提高导致英国经济更加萧条。

5 inspiration   

n.灵感，鼓励者，吸气

参考例句：

• These events provided the inspiration for his first novel.这些事件给了他创作第一部小说的灵感。
• What an inspiration she was to all around her!她对于她周围所有的人是一种多么大的鼓舞！

6 reductions   

减少( reduction的名词复数 )； 降低； [数学]约简； [摄影术]减薄

参考例句：

• Many companies have announced dramatic reductions in staff. 许多公司已经宣布大幅裁员。
• The forthcoming talks hold out the hope of real arms reductions. 即将举行的会谈给实现真正的裁军带来了希望。

7 advert   

vi.注意，留意，言及；n.广告

参考例句：

• The advert featured a dolphin swimming around a goldfish bowl.该广告的內容为一条在金鱼缸里游动的海豚。
• Please advert to the contents below.I believe you won't be disappointed.敬请留意后面的内容。相信您一定不会失望的。

8 pinch   

n.捏，撮，困苦，偷窃；vt.掐，使...困苦，偷窃

参考例句：

• She would pinch on food in order to spend on clothing.她过去常把伙食费省下来买衣服。
• He put a pinch of salt on his food.他在自己的食物上撒了一撮盐。

9 doubtful   

adj.难以预测的，未定的；怀疑的，可疑的

参考例句：

• Let's try to clear up our difficult and doubtful points.让我们设法把难处和疑点解决一下。
• Everyone was doubtful at first,but his statement in detail held up.起初大家都怀疑，但他的详细叙述证明情况属实。

10 exaggerates   

（使）扩大( exaggerate的名词复数 )； （使）增加； 夸大； 夸张

参考例句：

• I think he exaggerates the parallelism between the two cases. 我认为他夸大了两件事的相似之处。
• People will not believe a man who always exaggerates. 人们不会相信老是夸大其词的人。