English Intensive Reading 吉林大学远程教育学院
Introduction Text Language Points Grammar
				Lesson 8   Language Points  ( Page 8)
			… a new arrival … Meaning: Someone who has just come. 刚刚来的。 … introduced himself as a Minister for the Swiss Navy. Everybody laughed. Meaning: 介绍自己是瑞士的海军大臣。大家都笑了。 This is funny because Switzerland is a land-locked country with no coastline. “Well, why not? Italy has a Minister of Finance.” Meaning: “Why shouldn’t Switzerland have a Minister of Navy? Italy has a Minister of Finance, although it has almost no money.” “怎么？这有什么不可以的吗？意大利不也有个财政大臣嘛。”这个玩笑就是利用了各国不同的特点。 In its more potent guises, it has a Trojan-horse nature: Meaning: Humor seems so harmless and delightful that no one takes offence or is prepared to resist it. 在其有很大说服力的外表的掩盖下，幽默具有特洛伊木马的性质。 Some believe, for instance, that, next to the heroic British RAF, British humor did the most to fend off a German takeover in World War II. Meaning: It is generally believed that the heroic British Royal Air Force (RAF) played the greatest role in preventing Nazi Germany from defeating Great Britain. Some believe that British humor played the second greatest role. 比如，有些人就相信，在第二次世界大战期间英国之所以没有被德国占领，英勇的英国皇家空军功不可没，那么英国式的幽默仅次之。 next to: (prep.) 仅次于 同义词：besides 1. Next to English literature, chess was his greatest interest. 象棋是他仅次于英国文学的最大爱好。 2. Next to biology, I like physics best. 我喜欢物理学仅次于生物学。 to fend off: to defend against, to fight off 挡开，避开，抵抗 1. She fended off their blows with her arms. 她用手臂挡开了他们的攻击。 2. He fended off the difficult questions. 他避开了那些难题。 “Fighting in Libya, the bloody coward!” Meaning: The woman of course meant that opposite of what she said. The remark showed that she was proud of her husband but meanwhile implied that she believed that it took more courage to fight at home. “在利比亚打仗呢，这个该死的胆小鬼！ ”这句话表明在危险和艰难时刻，是幽默使人们生存了下来。 Similarly, whenever we Americans start taking ourselves a bit too seriously, a grassroots humor seems to rise and strew banana peels in our path. Meaning: The author is saying here that if we become pompous about our own importance or think too highly of ourselves, the kind of humor enjoyed by the common people (a grassroots humor) will bring us down to earth. 同样，每当我们美国人把自己估计过高时，这种大众幽默就将会把我们带回现实生活中。