Addendum: If you are interested in reading more prose-like writing--great for learning how to write descriptive articles, or to do translation--go to http://www.rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?boardid=8&id=25370&star=1&page=1  帮助写作的短段精读 Series III.  Excerpts from Canadian Book of the Road

Foreword  Every once in a few days, I will pick a short paragraph from a book, a newspaper, or a magazine and post it here. I will highlight (bold face) the words or phrases which I think you could and should learn and use for writing.  Your job is to find the meaning of those words, if you don't know them already. If you make a mistake, I will help you out. Next you should make sentences with some or all of them.

  This is something I have tried at the  Rainlane Treasure Island English Corner http://www.rainlane.com.  I am the chief moderator there and I feel it only fair for me to spend my time and submit my material to them first.  For those of you who wants to read more and practice more, you can also read other examples at the  thread at http://www.rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?boardid=8&id=15724

*** ( I am a notoriously bad typist and speller. Please advise me on any mistakes so I can change them. The last thing I want to do is to pass on false information.)

  Here is the first reading material: (very short to get you going.)
Source: The National Post, April 24, 2004. Book review by Douglas Reid on the book "Air Monopoly" (About Air Canada)
Title of Article:  Air Canada's Wings of Wax

The story of Icarus is a in Greek mythology--father and son escape from prison using self-made wings of wax, Junior flies too near the sun, intense heat melts the lad's wings and the boy tumbles into the sea and died. Father lives on,  free but remorseful, having been respectful of the sun's power.  The moral of the story: boundless self-confidence cannot (note i) thwart the laws of physics or gravity, especially ( Note ii) when one flies too high and is not able to adapt in time to prospectively perilous contingencies, the natural order of things is always a factor, and choices about how to play the game matter profoundly.

(Note i): cannot: one word. Not spelled as "can not."
(Note ii) "Especially" is not used as the start of an independent sentence. It should be use as part of a dependent clause.

沙发[em04][em02][em02]谢谢前辈，一定好好学[em04][em04][em04]

to Yeti 前辈：前辈，标题里的Canad's 是不是应该是“Canada's”啊？

谢谢前辈!认真学习!

前辈，我把你贴的文章抄下来了，下面是我对你划出来的一些重点的总结，我的英语不太好，总结的东西都是个人理解的，希望前辈多多指导我。这些东西也给大家参考下，错误的地方请大家多多包涵

[em07]

1. wings of wax

wax 有“蜡，蜂蜡”的意思，还有一个很特殊的解释是指“月亮由亏转盈，月亮渐满”。

文章里取蜡的意思，所以wings of wax 解释为“蜡制的翅膀”。

eg: This lovely angel has wings of wax.

这个可爱的天使有一对蜡制的翅膀。

2. free but remorseful

remorseful 解释为“懊悔的，悔恨的，自责的“。

free but remorseful 形象地刻画了父亲的心情，一方面，他得以从监狱逃脱，有重获自由的喜悦，所以用free
表示；另一方面，儿子葬身海底，而他无力搭救，又有悔恨之痛，所以用remorseful，两个词语将父亲的心情从两个方面刻画了出来，我们平时写作文的
时候也可以多用些这样有对比性的词汇，来增加文章的可读性。

3. the moral of the story

moral （1)道德的，有道德的，平行端正的

      （2)教训，寓意

这里取moral 的第二个意思  the moral of the story 解释为这则故事的寓意

eg:  The moral of the matter is that we should exert ourselves to overcome difficulties.

这则事件的寓意是我们必须竭尽全力以克服困难。

morals  解释为”行为准则，道德规范”。

4.fuel

fuel 这里取动词的用法，但是我解释不好，总觉得解释为“为。。。火上加油”有点勉强，请前辈和大家指教啊



[em07][em07]

5. boundless

解释为无限的  boundless self－confidence 解释为“过分自信的”。

eg: He failed in his final exam due to his boundless self－confidence.

由于过分自信，他考试没有及格。

6. thwart

是一个很正式的词语，这里解释为“阻扰，阻止”。（还有形容词，副词，介词的用法）。

eg: Inclement climate cannot thwart his step to save the little girl.

恶劣的天气阻扰不了他前去解救小女孩的脚步。

7. adapt

解释为“适应”。adapt to 解释为“使自己适应”。

这里的adapt in time 我不是很确定，不知道是不是“及时适应”的意思呢？

8. perilous

解释为“危险的”。这个词是“peril"的形容词，peril 是个很正式的词，解释为“严重的危险”。

eg:the perilous summit  险峰

9. contingency

解释为偶然事件，意外事故。

question: When one flies too high and is not able to adapt in time prospecitively perilous contingencies.

这句话怎么翻译呢？

我翻译的是：当一个人飞得过高，丧失使自己及时适应未来发生的危险性突发事件的能力的时候。

觉得翻得不太对呢，拗口的要命

[em07][em07]

9. Put differently

不太会解释啊，个人理解为“换个角度看”，“从另一个角度出发”。

10.the natural order of things

解释为“事物的自然规律，自然法则，自然秩序”。

11. is always a factor

解释为“总是值得考虑的重要因素”

12. how to play the game

解释为“如何遵循这种规律，如何适应这种法则”。



[em07][em07]后面的解释我都是凭个人的理解的，觉得解释得不太好，所以没写例句，这是我第一次总结这样的东西，水平很有限，但是很真心，希望给大家点帮助，里面错误的地方给大家带来的不便请大家原谅[em08]

Re: Canad's : Thanks. I made the necessary correction.  Like I said, I am a notoriously bad speller and typist, and careless to boot, so keep an eye out for me for mistakes like that.

--

I thank you for participating in this venture. Here are a few more details and/or background stories to those words and phrases.

1. Wings of wax: in this case, it is a metaphor on the Greek mythology. Many English phrases (living under the sword of democles; opening the pandora's box; cutting the Gordian knot; flying on a pair of wings of wax, all has a Greek origin. For more, read: Words and phrases that has a mythic or historic origin http://www.rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?boardID=11&ID=10694 )

3 The moral of the story（2)教训，寓意

This expression comes from Children stories. In the old days, most children stories ends with the paragraph "The moral of this story is...." And children are heard to ask their teachers or parents:" Teacher/Daddy/Mommy, what is the moral of this story?"  That expression has long (very long) since enter mainstream English to mean "is there a message 教训，寓意 to what we have just read, learned or found out.

4. fuel: 火上加油” yes. In some context that what it means. However, in general it means "to supply the 燃料 "

7 不知道是不是“及时适应”的意思呢？ Yes.

9. Your translation is essentially correct. My Chinese is awful so I cannot help you in getting a smoother version. (My high school Chinese composition teacher hated me. I was probably his worst student.)

I chose this paragraph because of how well it is written. Take for example "put differently" : just two simple words, instead of a string of awkwardly put together words. The "word count" requirement in writing exams is doing more harm than good. It forces students to artificially inflate the number of words in their sentences, or to put together a muble-jumble of pre-fabricated phrases. In the CET exams, students are given only 30 minutes to write something. The exam becomes one of testing how quickly you can write down something instead of how well you can write. In other words, it is not a test of writing skills. Not giving students a choice of topics is also a matter of expediency for the department of education, and not a sound pedagogical decision. If I were the minister of education, I would give 3 hours for the written test. Two essays from each of two catagories each of which has 3 topics to chose from.

Forgot to give you two examples concerning the other uses of wax.

(1)月亮由亏转盈，月亮渐满:  Wax is paired with wane as a contrast as in "the wax and wane of fortunes/fortunes wax and wane..."

(2)蜡 is slippery and can be applied to surfaces to make things slide easily. It is pair with the word eloquence/eloquent in the following way:  He waxed eloquent about the issue of environmental protection.

(I used this for a "reading-writing" project at Rainlane just about a year ago. 2004-8-28 12:51:50 http://www.rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?BoardID=8&ID=11802  . At that time there were several enthusiastic writers who are keen of learning to write well--several of them were attending universities overseas. The project gradually faltered and people could not find time to write full length essays everyday. I am bring you that reading material in two parts. Here is the first part.)

There are few particularily special words or phrases, but it is the way things are described that is worth your reading attention. Read through it carefully and look at how vividly the author describes the scence.

Extravagant beauty meets soaring battle
Fable unfolds in Gorgeous Tableaux(i)
Tale of Love, honour and heroism has some amazing fights.
By Jay Stone
Canwest News Service

(i) Tableaux: a vivid graphic description. (Some Chinese dictionary has it as 场面。Not quite the same, but close enough in certain context. Check with your E-to-E dictionary.)

“Sumptuous” is not quite the word for Zhang Yimou’s Hero, a martial arts epic of billowing robes twirling bodies, soaring arrows and lightning-fast swordplay.  “Intricate” doesn’t seem right either. There may not be a word for Hero. Maybe it’s “Impossible.”

  Hero is made up of gorgeous scenes,tableaux of red-robed king-fu experts standing in a windy field of deep yellow trees as lemon-coloured leaves blow across the ground, or swordsmen who twirl through the air, turning up-side-down and flashing through slow-motion raindrops. They may stop for a bit while a blind zither-player(ii) plucks out a sad solo, each  fighter closing his eyes to image the fight to come because music,with its chords and melodies, is much like the art of fighting. In another sequence, a killer studies the calligraphy of his opponent before the battle to unravel the man’s swordsmanship, which takes root in his formation of letters.
  That is to say, while there are no crouching tigers in Hero, and any hidden dragon remains out of sight, this an artful fable of love, honour and heroism that also has some really cool fights.

(To be continued...)

(ii) Zither is not a 古琴。However, it is structurally very similar. In many C to E translations, 古琴 is translated as a zither.

Zither is of European origin. It comes in many  different shapes but is essentially a flat string instrument that is of the same class of instrument as a 古琴.

An old Austrian playing a Zither.

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-6 6:13:40编辑过]

[em02]收到，谢谢前辈的指点，继续学习第二篇

tthe Yeti 前辈

前辈，梅香潇雨论坛上的解释我都看过了，很受启发的，我有几个问题想问：

（1）就是smitten 这个词，这个词能够直接用做定语吗？它在句中应该放在什么位置呢？

我按照自己的理解造了个句子，不知道对不对？

eg: My old grandfather was smittened with my grandmother, who is twenty years younger than him.

（2) 关于tableaux的解释，tableaux 可以解释为“电影造型，电影布景“的意思吗？

（3) 关于plucks out a sad solo的用法和解释pluck 本身解释为“勇气”的意思，在文章里我把这个词组解释为“奏出一曲悲壮的乐曲”对吗？怎么又觉得有点拗口呢



[em07]

（4) 关于Table of love , honour and heroism has some amazing flights.这句话中table的解释

table在这句话里怎么解释呢？

1,2, Yes.

3. Pluck is to pull very quickly. In music, a string is plucked when you pull on it and released it very quickly: plucking the strings of a guiter, a harp, a zither....  (Pluck is also used in pull, as in plucking a chicken--removing the feathers after you slaughtered it.)

There are few interesting words and phrases in the second part. I am putting here just to complete the article.  For more "interesting words and phrases" go to Reading Selection #3.

---

From: 第 5 楼  http://www.rainlane.com/dispbbs.asp?BoardID=8&ID=11802

The film was directed by Zhang Yimou, whose previous work-including Red Sorghum (i) and Raise the Red Lantern(ii)—had the extravagant beauty but none of the soaring battles. It’s set in the third century BC, when China was divided into seven kingdoms and the King of Qin (Chen Daoming) was determined to unit them. The king is hiding in his palace because he is afraid of assassination; Hero opens with a warrior known as Nameless (Jet Li) being brought before the king because he has kill the three assassins threatening the monarch.

(Yeti's notes #1, for Dian-Dian-Net: King/monarch) One of the rules of good writing (in English), is to avoid using the same word twice in near proximity. Some people complaint that this is why there are so many words in English.

  Nameless narrates to the king how he managed to defeat the assassins , and we get to watch the battles: the cognoscenti (iii) will be particularly taken with the first fight, between martial arts superstars Li and Donnie Yen. However, things are not as they seem: Hero is structured like a Chinese Roshomon (罗生门)(iv), with each of the version of his story being told in a different colour; so that what we see the first time in rich reds will be repeated in cool blues or strident greens (2). The fights between Nameless and the assassins are choreographed as slick and stylized sword fights or sometimes as dreamy fights through rich forests.  (Yeti's notes #2. Aug 6, 2005 for Dian-Dian net) Notice how the author uses a different adjective for each different color. He associated "red" with rich (rich in texture), blue with being cool, and green as jarring to the senses.) Also note: Red, blue, green...are colors. Idiomatically, one should not say "I have a red color dress", but "I have a red dress." (But you can say, "the color of my dress is red.")

(iii) Cognoscenti : (A new word that I learned yesterday when I read that movie review) . Singular : Cognoscente  Plural: Cognoscenti
Dictionary definition: A person with superior, usually specialized knowledge or highly refined taste; a connoisseur.
--
(i) I don't know what the Chinese name of this film is.

(ii) I think that's 亮红灯. It is about a concubine who was put to death for having an affair with (??her hairdresser ?? ) (I only watch about 1/3 of that movie on TV.)

(iv) Roshomon/Rashomon:  (I have not seen this movie, but my son told me why this movie is considered as a classic) : The movie is about a Japanese couple who was attacked by a bandit. The husband was killed and the wife raped. A woodsman hiding in the forest saw the crime. Later on the crime was recounted from four different prespective showing how individuals view the same event from different angle. It is a thought provoking movie depicting how individual prejudices clouds their judgement and certain moral ideas we held as absolute are actually relativistic or subjective.
The film won the Grand Prix at the Venice International Film Festival in 1951

---
--
Appended, Aug 30th. 2004. Thanks to 山定子 (sdj *) for supplying the following movie titlesbr>
Red Sorghum 红高梁
Raise the Red Lantern 大红灯笼高高挂

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-7 1:23:57编辑过]

Source: "Get up, Get out,  Get Stoked!" by David Leach. National Post Business Magazine, August 2005. 

(**I am typing this in, so check typing mistakes for me.)

Get up, Get out,  Get Stoked (1)

Hear that sound? It's a nation testing itself, conquering obstacles, pushing new frontieres--and having way too much fun in the process. Adventure recreation and travel, oncer the domain of X-Gamers--inspired 20-somethings, hikers in Tevas(2) and middle-age heli-skiing millionaires, is at an explosive threshold. New activities, new destinations, new  technologies and their unprecedented popular appeal are fundamentally changing the way we think about life beyond work. It's the new adventure: Aventure 2.0 (3)

Stoke: Means to add fuel, to stir (e.g. to stir the logs in a fireplace), as in "to stoke a fire." In the old days on steam-engine trains, there is a "stoker" whose task is to "stoke" the fire by "stoking coal" into the combustion chamber. Here, the word means to "get lighted up, to get "all fired up."

(2) Tevas: a popular brand of hiking sandals

(3) Adventure 2.0

Adventure 101, and adventure 2.0

Almost all first level courses in North American universities has the designate of 101 (Physics 101, English literature 101). The "101" is used in mainstream English to mean "fundamental knowledge of". It is usually used in the form of a sarcasm. E.g.  You are so clusmy clumsy (1)in your approach to women, you should take courtship 101.  Or The CIA has bungled their job so much that they should have their agents take Spying 101.

(1) Typo detected by viakitty. Corrected Aug 8th.

1.0, 2.0 comes at the heels of the computer revolution,. Software comes out in the form of version 1.0, 2.0, etc.  The label of 2.0 implies a "better and improved version." So Adventure 2.0 = the newer and better Adventure.

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-8 12:24:35编辑过]

[em02]谢谢前辈，前辈辛苦了，一定继续学[em04]

to The Yeti前辈：倒数第四行的clusmy是不是应该是clumsy呢？

1.conquering obstacle

解释为克服障碍，战胜困难    obstacle 解释为障碍，妨碍的意思

eg: After conquering obstacles in front of him, he finally let his dream come true.

2.frontiers（pl) 解释为尖端的意思

push new frontiers 解释为推出最新潮的东西，最尖端的（走在时代潮流前沿）的东西

eg: The company keeps on pushing new frontiers to meet the rapid changing in the field of computer.

ps:前辈，这个词组的解释我是按照自己的理解解释的，不知道对不对啊？

[em07][em07]

3. domain 很正式的一个词，解释为（活动、知识的范围）的领域

  threshold 也是很正式的一个词，解释为开始，开端，入门

eg: The domain of going under the water is at an explosive threshold.

4. unprecedented 解释为空前的，前所未有的

eg: The unprecedented gorgeous scenes of film Hero really mesmerized me.

5. The local peoples' behavior fundamentally changing the way I think about the relationships between people.

6. life beyond work 我把它解释为“抛开工作，享受生活”对吗？

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-8-9 18:37:12编辑过]

Hi, I am just doing a quick check. I have only 5 minutes to go on the
Net before going out, and will not be back until late tonight.

Yes, if something looks incorrect, it must be. I had not time to double check my typing. I will make the correction later.



I will say something about "x beyond y" later (e.g. life beyond work")



I wish there are more people as diligent as you are. There are readers
( you can tell by the number of hits).  One cannot improve his/her
English by watching others do; one must participate. Learning is not a
spectator sport. Only in Kung Fu stories are there people who become
great fighters just by watching other people practice, without
repeating the process themselves.

What we needed to do today took longer than we thought, and I am back home only about 5 minutes ago. I will not have time to type in new materials today.

For Viakitty/P>

Breifly/P>

pushing frontier= pushing back the frontier=pushing into new frontiers. Your interpretation is largely correct.

3. domain 很正式的一个词，解释为（活动、知识的范围）的领域

  threshold 也是很正式的一个词，解释为开始，开端，入门

eg: The domain of going under the water is at an explosive threshold.--> Exploring and developing the underewater domain is at an explosive threhold.  (Domain is "somebody's or something's 领域")


5. The local peoples' behavior fundamentally is changing the way I think about the relationships between people.

6. Beyond can mean "over and above", or "other than." In this case, it is "other than."

Life beyond work= work is not all of life, there is life other than just working.  Example: If you want to learn English beyond passing exams, you should...=If you want to learn English over and above just for learning for the sake of passing exams, you should....

[em07][em07][em07]不知道电脑怎么了，发了个超级长的帖子，给大家添麻烦了，对不起啊[em07]

[em02]谢谢前辈[em04][em04][em04]

to 前辈：前辈，我想问一个句子，就是“A man is known by the company he keeps"是不是解释为“一个人因为他所在公司的名气而取得成功的意思呢？”

I am afraid you have that wrong. The "Company"  in this sentence does not mean 公司, it means the people whom he is associated with.  Roughly:从一个人所交的朋友。及常有来往的人，就知道他是甚么样的人

Use of the word "company" in this meaning:  Example: Most of the company Al Capone kept were shady characters, corrupted city officials, rogue policeman, and other gangsters.  Another example:  Two is company, three is a crowd. ( Two, presumbly a man and a woman, is a "company" to one another. A third person would be an odd person out. (Cantonese call him/her a "light bulb"电灯泡，不通气“)

company > accompany

1. Viakitty. You can use your "edit" function to erase the large empty space in your post.

2. Good English can be learn from everywhere: ads, songs, poetry, and even obituary. Remind me to give you at least one example of a well written obituary.

Today's reading assignment is from an ad by Grant Thornton LLP (LLP=Limited Liability Pa