VOA慢速英语2012--Consumers' Online Petitions Put Pressure on Businesses

Technology Report - Consumers' Online Petitions² Put Pressure on Businesses

 

科技报道 - 消费者网上请愿向商家施压

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

The modern way to collect signatures on a petition¹ requires no paper or pen or standing³ on a street for hours. All it requires is going online.

收集请愿书签名的现代方式不再需要纸和笔，不再需要在街头站几个钟头，只需要上网即可。

Change.org is a social action website where people around the world can start or sign online petitions. The top causes range from animal protection to criminal justice to women's rights.

Change.org是一个社会行为网站，世界各地的人们可以在该网站上发起或签署网上请愿书。热门事件范围从动物保护到刑法公正再到妇女权利。

There are many different reasons why people start petitions at the site. Lauren Todd of New York told CBS television that she started a petition a few months ago after she saw a picture of a girls shirt on Facebook. The shirt read: "I'm too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me."

人们在该网站发起请愿的原因千奇百怪。来自纽约的劳伦·托德（Lauren Todd）对CBS电视台表示，几个月前，她在Facebook上看到一张女衬衫的图片后，发起了一次请愿。这件衬衫上写着：“我太漂亮了不能做功课，所以我哥得帮我做功课。”

LAUREN TODD: "It was outrageous⁴ enough to be posted on Facebook, but it was actually more outrageous than that, and I felt like I needed to do something about it."

托德：“把它发到Facebook上已经够离谱的，但它实际上比这更离谱。我觉得我必须就此做些事情。”

Ms. Todd's petition urged shoppers to boycott⁵ J.C. Penney stores until they stopped selling shirts with what she called sexist messages.

托德女士的请愿号召买家抵制彭尼百货公司（J.C. Penney stores），直到它们停止销售被她称为性别歧视的衬衫。

Five hours later, Shelby Knox started tweeting about the petition to her thousands of Twitter followers⁶. Ms. Knox is the director of women's rights organizing for Change.org. Some of her followers also started tweeting about the shirt and signing the petition.

五个小时后，谢尔比·诺克斯（Shelby Knox）把这次请愿推（Tweeting，相当于国内发微博的意思）给她数千名粉丝。诺克斯女士是Change.org网站妇女权利组织主任。一些她的粉丝也开始推这件事，并签署请愿书。

SHELBY KNOX: "From the time that Lauren started the petition on Change.org and J.C. Penney pulled the shirt, it was about ten hours, in which it got over two thousand signatures and at one point was generating⁷ over four hundred tweets a minute."

诺克斯：“从劳伦在Change.org网站发起请愿到彭尼百货公司下架衬衫，大约用了十个小时。这次请愿获得2千多个签名，每分钟曾一度发出4百多条推特。”

Ms. Knox said that with each new signature, an e-mail automatically⁸ went to J.C. Penney's public relations team. Another went to the company's chief. J.C. Penney, without comment, discontinued the shirts.

诺克斯女士说，每个新签名都会有一封电子邮件自动发到彭尼百货公司公关小组。另一封发给公司负责人。彭尼百货公司未作任何评论，停产了这件衬衫。

Clothing designer John Noone has worked with a number of large stores. He says he has always used words like "pretty" or "princess" when he creates shirts for girls.

服装设计师约翰·诺纳（John Noone）与一些大型卖场合作。他说他设计女衬衣时一直使用类似“漂亮”或“公主”之类的词。

JOHN NOONE: "Because it's easy to do, I guess it's just so ingrained in our culture that just it's an easy sale. It's going to be easier to sell a shirt that says, you know, 'My little princess' than, uh, 'My A student.'"

诺纳：“因为它很容易做到，我猜在我们的文化中这样会好卖已经根深蒂固。你知道，写着‘小公主’的衬衣会比写着‘学生’的衬衣好卖。”

Collecting petition signatures the traditional way

Mr. Noone says fashion designers find their ideas in many places. It could be a celebrity's tweet or something said on a TV show.

诺纳先生说，时装设计师会从很多地方寻找创意。它可能是一位名人的推特，或电视节目上说的话。

JOHN NOONE: "And if you think it's funny and the designer thinks it's funny and the buyer thinks it's funny, then it, you know, it makes it to the store."

诺纳：“如果大家觉得它很有趣，商店就会开始出售。”

But now, with the Internet, consumers who take offense⁹ can do more than just write an angry letter to the company.

但现在有了互联网，对此生气的消费者除了给公司写封表示愤怒的信，还可以做更多。

Another clothing seller, Forever 21, got in trouble not long after J.C. Penney. Forever 21 was selling a girl's shirt that read "Allergic¹⁰ to Algebra¹¹." It stopped selling them the day after the story spread.

另一家服装零售商，Forever 21在彭尼百货公司不久后也惹上了麻烦。Forever 21出售过一件写着“对代数过敏”的女衬衫。在这事开始传播一天后，该公司停止了出售。

Robin¹² Sackin is a professor at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. She thinks people should not get so angry. Children are influenced by their parents, she says, not the words on a shirt.

罗宾·萨克（Robin Sackin）是纽约时装技术学院一名教授。她认为人们不该生气，她说儿童是受父母的影响而不是印在衬衫上的话。

ROBIN SACKIN: "So if my child says to me 'Mommy, I want to get that,' I've said, 'OK, you can have it, but just remember something -- I don't care if you're pretty, you're doing your homework.'"

萨克：“如果我孩子对我说，‘妈妈，我想买那件衣服，’我会说，‘可以，你可以买这件衣服，但要记住，我才不管你漂亮，自己做作业！’”

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report. Have you ever started a petition -- online or on paper? Tell us your story at voanews.cn. I'm Mario Ritter.
___

Contributing: Ashley Milne-Tyte

1 petition   

n.请愿书，申请书，诉状；v.请愿，正式请求

参考例句：

• Thousands of citizens subscribed the petition.几千名公民在请愿书上签名。
• The number of signers of the petition for a new school snowballed.要求增设新学校而签名的人像滚雪球似的越来越多。

2 petitions   

（许多人签名的向当权者提出某种要求的）请愿书( petition的名词复数 )； 上诉状； 申诉书； 申请书

参考例句：

• Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. 我们屡次的请求，所得到的答复是屡次的伤害。
• Petitions bearing nearly a half-million signatures were sent to the White House. 有将近五十万人签名的请愿书被送到白宫。

3 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

4 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

5 boycott   

n./v.(联合)抵制，拒绝参与

参考例句：

• We put the production under a boycott.我们联合抵制该商品。
• The boycott lasts a year until the Victoria board permitsreturn.这个抗争持续了一年直到维多利亚教育局妥协为止。

6 followers   

追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件

参考例句：

• the followers of Mahatma Gandhi 圣雄甘地的拥护者
• The reformer soon gathered a band of followers round him. 改革者很快就获得一群追随者支持他。

7 generating   

n.发生，产生v.生（儿、女）( generate的现在分词 )；（通过物理或化学过程）发生；生成；引起

参考例句：

• There are many ways of generating a two-dimensional representation of an object. 有很多制作物体二维图的方法。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Generating functions are an ideal tool for studying sequences defined by recurrence. 母函数是研究用递推关系来确定的函数的最理想工具。 来自辞典例句

8 automatically   

adv.不加思索地，无意识地，自动地

参考例句：

• The machine cycles automatically.这台机器自动循环运转。
• She had automatically labelled the boys as troublemakers.她不假思索地认定这些男孩子是捣蛋鬼。

9 offense   

n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪

参考例句：

• I hope you will not take any offense at my words. 对我讲的话请别见怪。
• His words gave great offense to everybody present.他的发言冲犯了在场的所有人。

10 allergic   

adj.过敏的，变态的

参考例句：

• Alice is allergic to the fur of cats.艾丽斯对猫的皮毛过敏。
• Many people are allergic to airborne pollutants such as pollen.许多人对空气传播的污染物过敏，比如花粉。

11 algebra   

n.代数学

参考例句：

• He was not good at algebra in middle school.他中学时不擅长代数。
• The boy can't figure out the algebra problems.这个男孩做不出这道代数题。

12 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。