词汇大师-- The More Quotations Change

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: our guest is Fred Shapiro, the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations².
RS: Six years in the works, this newly published book contains about thirteen thousand entries from all time periods and regions -- but with special emphasis on twentieth century and American quotations.
AA: Fred Shapiro says he applied³ "state-of-the-art research techniques" to try to avoid a common problem: misquotations.

　　FRED SHAPIRO: "One example of a popular misquotation is in the 'Star Wars' movies, maybe the key line in the whole trilogy is when Darth Vader says 'I am your father.' But people remember that as 'Luke, I am your father.'
"Another example is, William Tecumseh Sherman [a Union general in the Civil War] is quoted as saying 'war is hell.' In fact, the closest he ever came to that is he said, 'There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.' He also said, 'I will not accept if nominated, and will not serve if elected.' And that's always remembered as: 'If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve.' It's a more eloquent⁴ way of speaking it. So misquotations are actually improvements usually in the language, the tone or the pacing of a quotation¹."
AA: "And so now let's talk about modern quotable Americans. If I said who's the most quotable American that immediately comes to mind, who would you think of?
FRED SHAPIRO: "My favorite, I think, of contemporary quotable people is Yogi Berra. He's so quotable that lots of things he never said get attributed to him, and he's become a kind of beloved icon⁵ of quotability. There's also the great comedians⁶ of the twentieth century: Woody Allen, Groucho Marx, W. C. Fields, Mae West. These are some of my favorite modern quotable people."
RS: "You mentioned the great baseball player Yogi Berra, could you give us some of his notable quotables?"
FRED SHAPIRO: "Sure. 'If you come to a fork in the road, take it.' 'It's deja vu all over again.' 'You can observe a lot by watching.' He has explanations for just about all of them. Like, for example, one of his quotes was 'It gets late early out there.' It sounds absurd, but he has explained that what he meant is that it's difficult to play left field in Yankee Stadium in late fall when the shadows creep up on you and you had a tough time seeing the ball off the bat."
RS: "What do you think these quotes say about who we are as Americans? How do we get closer to who we are as Americans by understanding a quote by, say, Yogi Berra?"
FRED SHAPIRO: "Well, first of all, these kinds of popular quotes from non-literary figures like Yogi Berra, they're expressed in an idiomatic⁷ language. So I think it helps people to get the rhythm of the English language and some of the slang they may use. But it also, on a very deep level, I think the quotations of a country express the preoccupations of that country, the patterns of thought. I think American quotes are different, for example, from British quotes because they're more informal; they're more satirical in their humor, rather than, maybe, British humor may be more sedate⁸."
RS: "Do you see that quotes evolve over time or the way our nation changes through the quotes? -- "
AA: "I mean, people talk about the 'sound bite age' now. Are quotes getting shorter and more sort of 'on message,' as the political 'spin' people call it?"
FRED SHAPIRO: "I can give two contradictory⁹ answers. One is that, the one thing you're struck by if you really study quotations is 'there's nothing new under the sun' or 'the more things change, the more they remain the same.' That the same kinds of political and religious questions, philosophical¹⁰ questions that preoccupied¹¹ people thousands of years ago still preoccupy¹² them today. But I do think you hit upon something that in the political realm there is this strong tendency to go toward short slogans. So I think that's something that has changed over time."
RS: Fred Shapiro is associate director of the Yale Law Library in New Haven¹³, Connecticut, and editor of the new Yale Book of Quotations. By the way, he cites the Book of Ecclesiastes as saying "there is no new thing under the sun," but notes that it's often quoted as "there's nothing new under the sun."
AA: And the nineteenth century French writer Alphonse Karr gets credit for "The more things change, the more they remain the same." And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address never changes. It's still [email protected].
RS: And our segments are all archived at voanews.com/wordmaster. With I'm Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

1 quotation   

n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情

参考例句：

• He finished his speech with a quotation from Shakespeare.他讲话结束时引用了莎士比亚的语录。
• The quotation is omitted here.此处引文从略。

2 quotations   

n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价

参考例句：

• The insurance company requires three quotations for repairs to the car. 保险公司要修理这辆汽车的三家修理厂的报价单。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These quotations cannot readily be traced to their sources. 这些引语很难查出出自何处。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

4 eloquent   

adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的

参考例句：

• He was so eloquent that he cut down the finest orator.他能言善辩，胜过最好的演说家。
• These ruins are an eloquent reminder of the horrors of war.这些废墟形象地提醒人们不要忘记战争的恐怖。

5 icon   

n.偶像，崇拜的对象，画像

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• Click on this icon to align or justify text.点击这个图标使文本排齐。

6 comedians   

n.喜剧演员，丑角( comedian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The voice was rich, lordly, Harvardish, like all the boring radio comedians'imitations. 声音浑厚、威严，俨然是哈佛出身的气派，就跟无线电里所有的滑稽演员叫人已经听腻的模仿完全一样。 来自辞典例句
• He distracted them by joking and imitating movie and radio comedians. 他用开玩笑的方法或者模仿电影及广播中的滑稽演员来对付他们。 来自辞典例句

7 idiomatic   

adj.成语的，符合语言习惯的

参考例句：

• In our reading we should always be alert for idiomatic expressions.我们在阅读过程中应经常注意惯用法。
• In his lecture,he bore down on the importance of idiomatic usage in a language.他在演讲中着重强调了语言中习惯用法的重要性。

8 sedate   

adj.沉着的，镇静的，安静的

参考例句：

• After the accident,the doctor gave her some pills to sedate her.事故发生后，医生让她服了些药片使她镇静下来。
• We spent a sedate evening at home.我们在家里过了一个恬静的夜晚。

9 contradictory   

adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立

参考例句：

• The argument is internally contradictory.论据本身自相矛盾。
• What he said was self-contradictory.他讲话前后不符。

10 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

11 preoccupied   

adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式)

参考例句：

• He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice anything wrong. 他只顾想着心事，没注意到有什么不对。
• The question of going to the Mount Tai preoccupied his mind. 去游泰山的问题盘踞在他心头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 preoccupy   

vt.使全神贯注，使入神

参考例句：

• But at the moment he had other things to preoccupy him.不过当时有另外的事情分了他的心。
• An intelligent man considers the prospect of failure,but he doesn't preoccupy himself with pointless worry.一个聪明的男人可以预见到失败，但他绝不会去无谓地担心。

13 haven   

n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所

参考例句：

• It's a real haven at the end of a busy working day.忙碌了一整天后，这真是一个安乐窝。
• The school library is a little haven of peace and quiet.学校的图书馆是一个和平且安静的小避风港。