日批在线视频_内射毛片内射国产夫妻_亚洲三级小视频_在线观看亚洲大片短视频_女性向h片资源在线观看_亚洲最大网

您現(xiàn)在的位置: Language Tips> Columnist> Zhang Xin  
 





 
Slippery slope?
[ 2007-09-28 11:24 ]


One of the fears facing English learners in reading news in English is new words – ugh, so many of them, I hear you groan. The prospect of having to look up one word after another is so daunting that many people simply give up reading altogether. Need not be so.

One sophisticated cure for this fear of new words pertains to psychology. Fear is an idea in your head. It's ok to address it head on, pardon the pun. In other words, feel the fear and do it. Face the fear and look words up anyway. Don't be daunted. Don't focus just on hardship – Don't recall and count the number of words you looked up yesterday. Instead, enjoy your accomplishments today. Or better, you can borrow the bright future by basking in the glories of success you'll achieve as a result of your reading on a daily basis. Bright future because by going through the daily toils, you're making sure of getting some spoils – making sure that your future will be nothing but a bright one. Think about it.

Or if this argument is too sophisticated for you, never mind. It's tossed up for free. You can drop it at no extra charge.

Joking aside, there is a simpler argument in assist and that is, you don't have to look all of them words up anyway. As you go along, you'll soon realize that you don't look as many words up as you think you will. A lot of times, you can guess their meaning through context.

If it doesn't happen today, never mind, either. It will happen some day. Keep plugging away. All in good time.

Without further ado, I'll give you an example. It's the term "slippery slope", which appeared twice in an article (Is torture ever justified?) in this week's edition (September 22, 2007) of the Economist.

It says:

One objection to allowing moderate physical pressure is the difficulty of knowing where to draw the line. If stress positions and sleep deprivation do not work, do you progress to branding with red-hot irons and beating to a pulp? And can you rely on interrogators to heed such distinctions? It is the danger of a slippery slope that makes opponents of torture insist on a total ban.

Then, in the next paragraph, it adds:

Israel is the only country in modern times to have openly allowed "moderate physical pressure" as a "last resort". Since interrogators used such methods anyway, it was argued, passing an explicit law would at least make it possible to set out some limits. But in 1999, citing the slippery-slope argument, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that torture could never be justified, even in the case of a ticking bomb. It went on to outlaw techniques such as sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of hot and cold, prolonged stress positions, hooding and violent shaking.

Guessed it?

Well, in the physical sense, imagine a slippery slope in a landslide, with mud and rocks sliding down the valley in much of a free-fall.

The "slippery-slope argument", on the other hand, works like the camel's nose, a metaphor from an Arabian tale which cautions people against allowing a small, insignificant problem to deteriorate into something large, terrible and out of control. If you see a camel roaming round your tent, so goes the story, you'd better chase it off now. If you don't, the camel will poke his nose into your tent. If you do nothing about that, sooner or later it'll stick his head into the tent as well, then the neck and then the torso. Before you know it, the whole camel is in the tent, lock stock and barrel, plundering and already making a mess of things...

In the torture argument, the slippery slope theory works like this: if you allow even the slightest forms of torture ("moderate physical pressure", e.g. sleep deprivation), soon you'll witness the worst (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay).

That's all for today. I'll be on vacation for two weeks, taking advantage of the extra days off during the National Day holiday. I'll be back in mid-October.

Happy holiday.

我要看更多專欄文章

 

About the author:
 

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

 

 
 
相關(guān)文章 Related Stories
 
         
 
 
 
 
 
         

 

 

 
 

48小時內(nèi)最熱門

     
  英國:外國留學(xué)生要學(xué)學(xué)排隊
  小心別“泄密”
  WAGS 太太和女朋友
  揭密為何一吻定情
  “天知地知,你知我知” 怎么說

本頻道最新推薦

     
  Slippery slope?
  “酒后駕車”還是“邊開車邊喝酒”?
  A case of overlooked talent
  Cut no ice?
  此肉非彼肉

論壇熱貼

     
  “凈臉聯(lián)盟”兩周年——迎國慶特別活動啟動
  how to translate“三局兩勝”
  知青 農(nóng)民工 怎么翻譯
  "魅力城市" 英文怎么說?
  請教:統(tǒng)一口徑的譯法
  Mountain Story 大山的故事






主站蜘蛛池模板: 黄色a视频 | 天天天天天天天天操 | 伦hdwww日本bbw另类 | 免费麻豆视频 | 日韩福利网站 | 碰在线视频| 亚洲乱码精品久久久久.. | 粉色视频导航 | 中文字幕亚洲天堂 | 中文字幕一区av | 可以在线观看的av | 国产精品热 | 国产另类在线 | 免费福利视频在线观看 | 五月婷婷激情五月 | 性爱视频在线免费 | 成人av在线网| 欧美 日韩 国产 在线观看 | 九热精品 | 国产激情一区二区三区 | 亚洲女人毛片 | 精品在线视频免费观看 | 天天干天天操天天爱 | 好吊色视频在线观看 | 6699嫩草久久久精品影院 | 欧美日韩精品一区二区三区四区 | 成 年人 黄 色 片 | 性生活短视频 | avtt国产 | 五月在线 | 久久久久免费看 | 国产福利在线播放 | 国产91福利 | 爱爱视频免费网站 | 国产亚洲系列 | 亚洲自拍偷拍精品 | 日韩日日夜夜 | 成人自拍一区 | 亚洲精品www | 欧美偷拍第一页 | 最新日本中文字幕 |