In a room full of non-native speakers, ‘there isn’t any chance of understanding’.
2016年10月31日 星期一
2016年10月29日 星期六
China, china
【立場新聞】用一篇介紹【氣短集】專欄的這篇
PROPER NOUN
- A country in East Asia, the third largest and most populous in the world; population 1,338,613,000 (est. 2009); language, Chinese (of which Mandarin is the official form); capital, Beijing.Official name People's Republic of China
Pronunciation:
NOUN
- 1[mass noun] A fine white or translucent vitrified ceramic material.‘a plate made of china’Also called porcelain[as modifier] ‘a china cup’
- 1.1Household tableware or other objects made from china or a similar material.‘she had begun to remove the breakfast china’
- 1.1Household tableware or other objects made from china or a similar material.
- 2British informal A friend.
- ‘Keep doing that chinas, and this just might be precisely the case!’
Origin
Late 16th century (as an adjective): from Persian chīnī relating to China, where it was originally made.
chair
NOUN
- 2The person in charge of a meeting or of an organization (used as a neutral alternative to chairman or chairwoman) 2014.10.30 英文很有彈性。以前女權興起，說(女)董事長要稱chairperson。今天看杜邦公司發的新聞稿，只用chair：
Columbia Business School Awards Deming Cup to DuPont Chair & CEO Ellen Kullman‘she's the chair of a research committee’- 2.1The post of a chairperson.‘he was due to step down after a three-year stint in the chair’
- 2.1The post of a chairperson.
- 3A professorship.‘he held a chair in physics’
- 4British A metal socket holding a rail in place on a railway sleeper.
VERB
[WITH OBJECT]- 1Act as chairperson of or preside over (an organization, meeting, or public event)‘the debate was chaired by the Archbishop of York’
- 2British Carry (someone) aloft in a chair or in a sitting position to celebrate a victory.‘no one seemed anxious to chair him round the hall’
Phrases
- take the chair
- Act as chairperson.‘the account executive will usually take the chair in meetings’
Origin
Middle English: from Old French chaiere (modern chaire bishop's throne, etc., chaise chair), from Latin cathedra seat, from Greek kathedra. Compare with cathedral.
sabotage, slogan, sloganeer
昨天注意到Joseph Juran 的著作中，有"工廠刻意破壞/停機"的英文sabotage有字源說明法國紡織場的織工將穿的木屐 (sabot，原以為是荷蘭人穿的)放入織機，讓其停機。
VERB
[WITH OBJECT]- Deliberately destroy, damage, or obstruct (something), especially for political or military advantage.‘power lines from South Africa were sabotaged by rebel forces’
NOUN
- [mass noun] The action of sabotaging something.‘a coordinated campaign of sabotage’
Origin
Early 20th century: from French, from saboter kick with sabots, wilfully destroy (see sabot).
今午的另一字源：* Elias Canetti《群眾與權力》（Masse und Macht, 1960）黃漢青 陳衛平譯，臺北：成均，1982（大陸似乎前年才有翻譯本？）2015.10.30 讀第一章，驚覺slogan 的字源的說法：Early 16th century: from Scottish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm, from sluagh 'army' + gairm 'shout'. 這據說是空中群靈的叫聲。其實{牛津字典}說法比較可信，他們古蘇格蘭的戰爭時的叫陣等聲音historical A Scottish Highland war cry.。
NOUN
- 1A short and striking or memorable phrase used in advertising.‘a series of arson attacks gave new meaning to the advertising slogan ‘come home to a real fire’’
- 1.1A motto associated with a political party or movement or other group.‘students were chanting slogans’
- 1.1A motto associated with a political party or movement or other group.
- 2historical A Scottish Highland war cry.
Origin
2016年10月27日 星期四
Chizza—KFC’s version of pizza
Meet the Chizza—KFC’s version of pizza that replaces dough with fried chicken.
double bind
Exploring what's known as "double bind" — assumptions about men, women and leadership.
Listen here:
bind
noun
double bind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind
n.
- A psychological impasse created when contradictory demands are made of an individual, such as a child or an employee, so that no matter which directive is followed, the response will be construed as incorrect.
- A situation in which a person must choose between equally unsatisfactory alternatives; a punishing and inescapable dilemma.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Hillary Clinton rather famously spoke of cracks in the glass ceiling - that invisible barrier that stops women from rising to the highest rungs of power. Some psychologists see it differently - not a ceiling, but a labyrinth. And the problem does not stop once a woman is elected to public office or reaches the corner office. NPR's Shankar Vedantam explores a painful double bind that affects women who seek to lead.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: For 16 years, Connie Morella served as a Republican congresswoman from Maryland, but she says she struggled to be taken seriously.
CONNIE MORELLA: I would respond to a question or a comment on an issue. And they would say, well, thank you, Connie. And then, a little later, Representative Smith said the very same thing I did, and it was, oh, Congressman Smith, that was fabulous. Let the record show that you have accomplished that - whatever. And I think, gee, I just said that.
VEDANTAM: This is one side of the double bind. Women who aspire to leadership are often seen as inconsequential. In 1992, Carol Moseley-Braun became the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. But shortly after she won her race, she confronted the other side of the double bind. She made an impassioned plea on the Senate floor one day and realized her colleagues were only hearing a shrill, angry woman.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CAROL MOSELEY-BRAUN: And getting rid of that safety net is what this so-called welfare reform is all about. We are rending that safety net apart.
VEDANTAM: Moseley-Braun says she nearly quit the Senate that day. It wasn't just about the unfair perception. She saw her experience in the long light of history.
MOSELEY-BRAUN: In the 15th century, women who talked back, they would put weights on their tongue. And so it is really that very, very fine line between being a shrew on the one hand and a puppet on the other that any woman in public life has to walk.
VEDANTAM: The experiences of Carol Moseley-Braun and Connie Morella reveal the twin faces of the double bind. Women in power often have to choose between being seen as likeable, but incompetent, or competent, but cold. Social psychologist Alice Eagly says the double bind arises from a series of interlocking stereotypes about gender...
ALICE EAGLY: People expect women to be kind of nice and friendly (laughter) and smile.
VEDANTAM: ...And about leadership.
EAGLY: One is expected to demonstrate toughness, make tough decisions, sometimes fire people for cause, et cetera.
VEDANTAM: But in real life, when we look at a woman leader who appears incompetent or shrill, how do we know if we are seeing the world as it actually is or through the lens of our own biases? Madeline Heilman, a psychology professor at New York University, uses controlled experiments to answer that question. In one study, for instance, she asked volunteers to evaluate a high-powered manager joining a company. Sometimes, volunteers are told the manager is a man. Other times, they're told it's a woman.
MADELINE HEILMAN: When we present women and men with exactly the same credentials, qualifications and backgrounds for a job that is traditionally male, we consistently find that the woman is seen as more incompetent than the man.
VEDANTAM: Because these biases are shaped by culture, they're held by both men and women.
HEILMAN: The research that I've done has shown that when women are truly successful in areas where they're not expected to be, there's a very negative reaction. There's disapproval, but they're also seen as really awful depictions of what kinds of people they are - words like bitter and quarrelsome and selfish and deceitful and devious and manipulative and cold. We have terms for these people - you know, ice queen and dragon lady and iron maiden and so on and so forth.
VEDANTAM: At the same time, many experts believe these biases might be breaking down. As society changes and we come to think of leadership as being collaborative rather than dictatorial, our views may also change. The less we think of leaders as alpha males, the easier it's going to be for women to make it through the labyrinth and for our unconscious minds to recognize them as competent leaders. If there's one common thread here, it's that ending the double bind can't be just on the women who are reaching for high office or the corner office. It has to be on all of us. Shankar Vedantam, NPR News.
MONTAGNE: And Shankar, of course, is the host of the Hidden Brain podcast.
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