外刊中有哪些好的句子和表达？（19）

各位晚上好，欢迎回到经济学人赏析栏目，关于栏目的介绍可见 栏目介绍 。

1.lend themselves to easy answers

今天的句子来自来自一篇对印度经济的报道 Taxation in India: Take it easy

NOTHING in India is ever simple. It is too vast, too diverse, too argumentative and too democratic for any of its problems to lend themselves to easy answers.

没有什么事情在印度简单过，印度过于巨大和多元，过于民主化和容易引发争论，以至于对于印度遇到的问题，没有简单的解决方案。

选取这个句子是因为 for any of its problems to lend themselves to easy answers 这个表达，其中 something lends itself to something 是一个固定表达，含义是“……适用于某事，……对某事有帮助”，problems lend themselves to easy answers 即“对……问题有简单的解决方案”。

在解决方案类话题中可以使用该短语，例如：

(a) The environmental problems China now encounter hardly lend themselves to easy answers, as the hazardous smog blanketing the country's north-east can attest.

(b) The novel's complex, imaginative style does not lend itself to translation.

与此类似的还有我们之前提到一个表达：something is no panacea for something  某事不是解决……的灵丹妙药

2.Airbnb

下面句子出自经济学人对 Airbnb 的报道：The sharing economy: New York deflates Airbnb

But legislation signed in New York state on October 21st has taken some of the puff out of Airbnb’s mattress.

了解这个句子的精妙之处需要联系上下文。文章开头介绍了 Airbnb 成立的故事：两位创始人 Brian Chesky 和 Joe Gebbia 因为酒店客满而萌生了一个绝妙的想法：将他们公寓里面的气垫床出租给需要开会的人。由此诞生了 Airbnb 的雏形，Airbnb 这一名字也起源于 Airbed & Breakfast 的缩写。

由此看来，Airbnb 与气垫床密切相关，下文提到的 taken some of the puff out of Airbnb’s mattress 也与这一背景相呼应，将空气从 Airbnb 的床垫中抽出来，可以引申为纽约州签订的法规对 Airbnb 造成了打击。借用这个气垫床的比喻让人印象更加深刻，假如换成: But legislation signed in New York state on October 21st has taken its toll on Airbnb. 就会显得比较平淡。

此外，文章标题也与这一背景相呼应：

New York deflates Airbnb, 其中 deflate 不仅带有“削弱，使受挫”的含义，还可以指“使轮胎或气球等泄气”，用在这里一语双关。

3.Eleanor and Hick

下面段落来自书评：Eleanor Roosevelt: Ahead of her time

In “Eleanor and Hick” Susan Quinn focuses on the first lady’s relationship with Lorena Hickok (known as Hick), a journalist with the Associated Press. Assigned to cover the first lady, Hick fell in love instead, and Eleanor seems to have reciprocated. They shared difficult childhoods. Eleanor’s emotionally distant mother had called her “Granny” as a child because she was so serious; Hick had been beaten by her father and the family moved constantly to try to escape poverty. Both craved love. Eleanor had been forced to turn outside her marriage in 1918 after uncovering an affair between her husband and her secretary.

选取这个段落是为了说明写作的一个手法：长短句结合。一般来说，长句因为使用的定语和状语较多，增大了概念的内涵，因此比较准确、严密，但使用起来不够活泼。短句一般比较简洁、明快、有力，但不利于表达复杂的语义概念。在写作中要做到长短句交替使用，这样能够满足节奏和语义上的需要。举个例子，上面段落中因为 They shared difficult childhoods. 以及 Both craved love. 这两个短句的加入而有了生气，不会显得过分沉闷死板。要感受这种长短句交替的节奏感，只需要把上面的段落读几遍就知道了。在语言节奏的判断上，眼睛可能会欺骗你，但耳朵不会。

4.wilt, park, lever

我们之前很多次介绍过小词的活用，这里再举几个例子：

句子出自文章：Early childhood development: Give me a child

Globally just 55.3% of women of working age are employed or looking for a job—less than in 1990. But the usefulness to society of early development goes far beyond giving parents a place to park a kid.

句子中 park 的用法很有意思，它带有“把……放在某处（常因持续时间过长而令人生厌）”的含义，用来指小孩很形象。

下面句子出自文章：Trump and Putin: My brilliant friend

What is going on? A popular view is that Mr Putin, whose aversion to Mrs Clinton is plain, is trying to lever Mr Trump into the White House, just as he supports isolationists in Europe.

其中 lever Mr Trump into the White House 这个用法很新奇，lever 是指“杠杆”，lever Mr Trump into the White House 即普京像使用杠杆一般将川普送进白宫，很有画面感。

下面这个例子出自：Bailing out Mongolia: A wrong direction in the steppe

Squabbling and delays over big foreign investments in mining projects, along with low global commodity prices, have stemmed inflows of foreign currency, prompting the local currency, the togrog, to wilt .

上面句子的背景是蒙古因为国际大宗商品价格下跌以及外国投资受阻而导致本国货币图格里克贬值，作者使用 wilt 来替代常见的 devalue. wilt 本义是植物枯萎，在这里引申为货币贬值，用得很恰当。

5.running a school

我在 为什么说漂亮的句子往往是从改写开始的？ 这篇文章中曾经提到比喻这种修辞手法，恰当的比喻能让读者更好地理解复杂的概念，令人印象深刻。下面就是一个很棒的例子：

FOR a president, making education policy can be like running a school with thousands of unruly pupils. He can goad states and coax school districts, offering gold stars to those who shape up. But if a class is defiant he can do little ... Many presidents end up like forlorn head teachers.

对于美国总统来说，制订教育政策是一件很复杂的事情，要兼顾各方利益。作者将制订政策比作管理学校：通过奖励小金星等形式来鼓励那些表现好的学生。但如果整个班级都很叛逆，校长也无能为力。美国总统目前就面临着这样的困境：州政府和学区的配合不够，使得联邦政府非常被动。

文章主题是关于美国教育政策，因此上文中这个关于学校的比喻非常切题，这也是我们使用比喻手法时追求的目标：使用读者熟悉的事物来类比，让读者印象更加深刻。

经济学人在最新一期关于硅谷公司薪酬的文章中也有一个类似的案例：

Today wage suppression in Silicon Valley is even more of a distant memory than dial-up internet and mainframe computers.

使用90年代的拨号上网和大型计算机来说明硅谷的薪酬压榨已经成为过去，这个类比与文章的IT主题密切相关，让读者感觉更加亲切。

以上是这一期赏析的内容，如果你也发现了精彩的句子，欢迎在评论区留言或者发到后台给我，我接下来会整理出来进行分享。

点击“ 阅读原文 ”查看经济学人赏析系列的往期文章。