Back in fashion
再度风行（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 30th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
（1）IN 2001, Warren Jeffs officiated[1] while a 14-year-old girl married her 19-year-old cousin. It was the first marriage for the bride and meant to be the first of many for the groom.Mr Jeffs is the leader of the Fundame

英语中的成语和汉语中的一样，也是十分丰富的，其中不少都有典故。如果能够了解它们背后的故事，对于我们理解和记忆是十分有帮助的。下面几个例子和大家一起分享。
1. give a lick and a promise 敷衍搪塞
这条成语直译为“先舔一下再做承诺”。它出自一则英国民间传说。至少两个世纪以前有一只猫，它的脸常常脏得很，每当别的猫要它洗脸时它就用舌头很快舔一下，然后保证说下次一定弄干净，但实际只是敷衍了事。后来这个说法就被用来表示“工作马虎、敷衍搪塞”。例如：
You didn’t wash your hands; you just gave them a lick and a promise. (你根本没洗手，只不过敷衍了事。)

动物比喻（Animal Metaphors）在英汉两种语言中均有广泛的使用，它使语言生气勃勃，形象鲜明。然而，由于文化背景、思维方式的不同，人们对动物比喻的正确理解和翻译存有障碍。从翻译的角度总体说来，动物比喻可以分为两大类：
一类是：译语与原语存在对应的关系，使动物形象再现成为可能。根据两种语言在意义、形象或风格上的相似性，翻译时可采用同值、近值互借法，以再现原语形象。例如：
1．What a dull speech! He's merely parroting what many others have said.多么单调乏味的讲话！他不过是鹦鹉学舌，重复许多人说过的话而已。
2． A wolf in sheep's clothing　披着

有这样一句话“Joe lives on easy street and can buy all the new things that make life easy.”，如果稍不注意，你有可能会翻译为“乔住在一条很方便的街上，那里买东西方便，生活很舒服。”不看原文，这句话翻译得很通顺，但恰恰却失去了“easy street”这个看似不起眼却十分重要的短语。如果说是要形容某一条街，那前面应该有不定冠词，例如“a busy/quiet street”或是复数形式；如果是街名，则应该大写。“一条很方便的街”显然是根据原文字面意思翻译的。
的确，“easy”除了“容易”这个意思之外，还有“方便”的意思。例如The new house is within easy distance of

Salty tales
咸话地中海（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 16th 2006
From The Economist print edition
JOHN JULIUS NORWICH is the author of more than a dozen books onNorman Sicily①,the Sahara,Mount Athos②and the Venetian and Byzantine empires. （1）Yet even his immense knowledge is not enough to keep his latest chronicle—of 5,000 years of Mediterr

The universal diarist
风靡全球的日记作者（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 23rd 2006
From The Economist print edition
IT ALL began five years ago with a blog entry about a banjo. （1）Mena Trott had recently graduated as an English major from college and, at 23, was living as an under-employed designer with her husband Ben in San Francisco, pas

Trouble clicks
都是点击惹的祸（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 23rd 2006
From The Economist print edition
INTERNET advertising is booming. The industry has gone from $9.6 billion in revenue in 2001 to $27 billion this year, according to Piper Jaffray, an investment bank. And it is still early days. The internet accounts for only 5% of total spendi

The Georgian knot
格鲁吉亚之结（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 23rd 2006 | TALLINN
From The Economist print edition
（1）NOBODY can fault the Georgians' courage. Judgment is another matter.America has dropped its objections to Russia's membership of the World Trade Organisation—seemingly in return for support on Iran and North Korea. B

Start of the long march
而今迈步从头越（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 16th 2006 | BEIJING AND HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition
IF, AS seems likely, consumer banking in China takes a great leap forward, Guangdong Development Bank has obvious appeal. It has 13m customers, 500 branches, a strong franchise in the manufacturing hub near Hong Ko

TEXT 75
Playing a long game
持久战（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 16th 2006 | LONDON, NEW YORK AND TOKYO
From The Economist print edition
THINGS have not been going well for Sony lately. （1）Last month senior executives at the Japanese electronics giant issued an unprecedented apology after discovering that 9.6m laptop batteries, suppl

TEXT 74
Mood music
乐为心声（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 9th 2006 | SYDNEY
From The Economist print edition
THE embattled chief executive of Telstra, Sol Trujillo, helped pay his way through college in America by playing the trumpet in his family's Mariachi band. But his past 16 months as the head of Australia's biggest telecoms

TEXT 73
Marketmaker
造市者（陈继龙 编译）
Nov 2nd 2006
From The Economist print edition
EARLIER this year Ukraine became a market economy. （1）That might surprise many Ukrainians, who were under the impression they had been living with free enterprise since prices were deregulated in 1991, the currency became convertible in

TEXT 72Chimney sweeps under fire
烟囱清洁工四面楚歌（陈继龙 编译）
Oct 19th 2006 | FRANKFURT
From The Economist print edition（1）GERMANY'S chimney sweeps—hallowed as bringers of good luck, with their black top hats and coiled-wire brushes—are under attack.Last week the European Commission'sdirectorate[1]for the internal market

TEXT 71
Pinched bellies
勒紧裤腰带（陈继龙 编译）
Oct 19th 2006 | SEOUL
From The Economist print edition
（1）A NUCLEAR capability may be the toast of North Korea's leaders, but it is a blight[1] on their poor countrymen's bellies.Even before fresh sanctions were imposed against the rogue nation this week,______①respon

TEXT 70
Comeback man
重生（陈继龙 编译）
Oct 12th 2006
From The Economist print edition
THE true critic, Vladimir Nabokov onceo_______①,reads not with his brain but with his backbone. He waits for the “tell-tale tingle down the spine” which alerts him to good writing. After more than a decade messing about writing som