时间:2019-01-23 作者:英语课 分类:英文短篇小说


英语课
'Bees don't sting unless they have to, because it kills them,' Bobby said matter-of-factly. 'You remember that time in North Conway, when you said we kept killing 1 each other because of original sin?'
'Yes. Hold still.'
'Well, if there is such a thing, if there's a God who could simultaneously 2 love us enough to serve us His own Son on a cross and send us all on a rocket-sled to hell just because one stupid bitch bit a bad apple, then the curse was just this: He made us like wasps 3 instead of bees. Shit, Howie, what are you doing?'
'Hold still,' I said, 'and I'll get it out. If you want to make a lot of big gestures, I'll wait.'
'Okay,' he said, and after that he held relatively 4 still while I extracted the stinger. 'Bees are nature's kamikaze pilots, Bow-Wow. Look in that glass box, you'll see the two who stung me lying dead at the bottom. Their stingers are barbed, like fishhooks. They slide in easy. When they Pull out, they disembowel themselves.'
'Gross,' I said, dropping the second stinger in the ashtray 6. I couldn't see the barbs 7, but I didn't have a microscope.
'It makes them particular, though,' he said.
'I bet.'
'Wasps, on the other hand, have smooth stingers. They can shoot you up as many times as they like. They use up the poison by the third or fourth shot, but they can go right on making holes if they like ... and usually they do. Especially wall-wasps. The kind I've got over there. You gotta sedate 9 em. Stuff called Noxon. It must give em a hell of a hangover, because they wake up madder than ever.'
He looked at me somberly, and for the first time I saw the dark brown wheels of weariness under his eyes and realized my kid brother was more tired than I had ever seen him.
'That's
why people go on fighting, Bow-Wow. On and on and on. We got smooth stingers. Now watch this.' He got up, went over to his tote-bag, rummaged 10 in it, and came up with an eye-dropper. He opened the mayonnaise jar, put the dropper in, and drew up a tiny bubble of his distilled 11 Texas water.
When he took it over to the glass box with the wasps' nest inside, I saw the top on this one was different - there was a tiny plastic slide-piece set into it. I didn't need him to draw me a picture: with the bees, he was perfectly 12 willing to remove the whole top. With the wasps, he was taking no chances.
He squeezed the black bulb. Two drops of water fell onto the nest, making a momentary 13 dark spot that disappeared almost at once. 'Give it about three minutes,' he said.
'What-'
'No questions,' he said. 'You'll see. Three minutes.'
In that period, he read my piece on art forgery 14 ... although it was already twenty pages long.
'Okay,' he said, putting the pages down. 'That's pretty good, man. You ought to read up a little on how Jay Gould furnished the parlor-car of his private train with fake Manets, though - that's a hoot 8.' He was removing the cover of the glass box containing the wasps' nest as he spoke 15.
'Jesus, Bobby, cut the comedy!' I yelled.
'Same old wimp,' Bobby laughed, and pulled the nest, which was dull gray and about the size of a bowling 16 ball, out of the box. He held it in his hands. Wasps flew out and lit on his arms, his cheeks, his forehead. One flew across to me and landed on my forearm. I slapped it and it fell dead to the carpet. I was scared - I mean really scared. My body was wired with adrenaline and I could feel my eyes trying to push their way out of their sockets 17.
'Don't kill em,' Bobby said. 'You might as well be killing babies, for all the harm they can do you. That's the whole point.' He tossed the nest from hand to hand as if it were an overgrown softball. He lobbed it in the air. I watched, horrified 18, as wasps cruised the living room of my apartment like fighter planes on patrol.
Bobby lowered the nest carefully back into the box and sat down on my couch. He patted the place next to him and I went over, nearly hypnotized. They were everywhere: on the rug, the ceiling, the drapes. Half a dozen of them were crawling across the front of my big-screen TV.
Before I could sit down, he brushed away a couple that were on the sofa cushion where my ass 5 was aimed. They flew away quickly. They were an flying easily, crawling easily, moving fast. There was nothing drugged about their behavior. As Bobby talked, they gradually found their way back to their spit-paper home, crawled over it, and eventually disappeared inside again through the hole in the top.
'I wasn't the first one to get interested in Waco,' he said. 'It just happens to be the biggest town in the funny little non-violent section of what is, per capita, the most violent state in the union. Texans love to shoot each other, Howie - I mean, it's like a state hobby. Half the male population goes around armed. Saturday night in the Fort Worth bars is like a shooting gallery where you get to plonk away at drunks instead of clay ducks. There are more NRA card-carriers than there are Methodists. Not that Texas is the only place where people shoot each other, or carve each other up with straight-razors, or stick their kids in the oven if they cry too long, you understand, but they sure do like their firearms.'
'Except in Waco,' I said.
'Oh, they like em there, too,' he said. 'It's just that they use em on each other a hell of a lot less often.'
Jesus. I just looked up at the clock and saw the time. It feels like I've been writing for fifteen minutes or so, but it's actually been over an hour. That happens to me sometimes when I'm running at white-hot speed, but I can't allow myself to be seduced 21 into these specifics. I feel as well as ever - no noticeable drying of the membranes 22 in the throat, no groping for words, and as I glance back over what I've done I see only the normal typos and strikeovers. But I can't kid myself. I've got to hurry up. 'Fiddle-de-dee,' said Scarlett, and all of that.
The non-violent atmosphere of the Waco area had been noticed and investigated before, mostly by sociologists. Bobby said that when you fed enough statistical 23 data on Waco and similar areas into a computer - population density 24, mean age, mean economic level, mean educational level, and dozens of other factors - what you got back was a whopper of an anomaly. Scholarly papers are rarely jocular, but even so, several of the better than fifty Bobby had read on the subject suggested ironically that maybe it was 'something in the water'.
'I decided 25 maybe it was time to take the joke seriously,' Bobby said. 'After all, there's something in the water of a lot of places that prevents tooth decay. It's called fluoride.'
He went to Waco accompanied by a trio of research assistants: two sociology grad-students and a full professor of geology who happened to be on sabbatical and ready for adventure. Within six months, Bobby and the sociology guys had constructed a computer program which illustrated 26 what my brother called the world's only calmquake. He had a slightly rumpled 27 printout in his tote. He gave it to me. I was looking at a series of forty concentric rings. Waco was in the eighth, ninth, and tenth as you moved in toward the center.
'Now look at this,' he said, and put a transparent 28 overlay on the printout. More rings; but in each one there was a number. Fortieth ring: 471. Thirtyninth: 420. Thirty-eighth: 418. And so on. In a couple of places the numbers went up instead of down, but only in a couple (and only by a little).
'What are they?'
'Each number represents the incidence of violent crime in that particular circle,' Bobby said. 'Murder, rape 19, assault and battery, even acts of vandalism. The computer assigns a number by a formula that takes population density into account.' He tapped the twenty-seventh circle, which held the number 204, with his finger. 'There's less than nine hundred people in this whole area, for instance. The number represents three or four cases of spouse 29 abuse, a couple of barroom brawls 30, an act of animal cruelty - some senile farmer got pissed at a pig and shot a load of rock-salt into it, as I recall - and one involuntary manslaughter.'
I saw that the numbers in the central circles dropped off radically 31: 85, 81, 70, 63, 40, 21, 5. At the epicenter of Bobby's calmquake was the town of La Plata. To call it a sleepy little town seems more than fair.
The numeric value assigned to La Plata was zero.
'So here it is, Bow-Wow,' Bobby said, leaning forward and rubbing his long hands together nervously 32, 'my nominee 33 for the Garden of Eden. Here's a community of fifteen thousand, twenty-four per cent of which are people of mixed blood, commonly called Indios. There's a moccasin factory, a couple of little motor courts, a couple of scrub farms. That's it for work. For play there's four bars, a couple of dance-halls where you can hear any kind of music you want as long as it sounds like George Jones, two drive-ins, and a bowling alley 34.' He paused and added, 'There's also a still. I didn't know anybody made whiskey that good outside of Tennessee.'
In short (and it is now too late to be anything else), La Plata should have been a fertile breeding-ground for the sort of casual violence you can read about in the Police Blotter section of the local newspaper every day. Should have been but wasn't. There had been only one murder in La Plata during the five years previous to my brother's arrival, two cases of assault, no rapes 20, no reported incidents of child abuse. There had been four armed robberies, but all four turned out to have been committed by transients ... as the murder and one of the assaults had been. The local Sheriff was a fat old Republican who did a pretty fair Rodney Dangerfield imitation. He had been known, in fact, to spend whole days in the local coffee shop, tugging 36 the knot in his tie and telling people to take his wife, please. My brother said he thought it was a little more than lame 37 humor; he was pretty sure the poor guy was suffering first-stage Alzheimer's Disease. His only deputy was his nephew. Bobby told me the nephew looked quite a lot like Junior Samples on the old Hee-Haw show.
'Put those two guys in a Pennsylvania town similar to La Plata in every way but the geographical,' Bobby said, 'and they would have been out on their asses 38 fifteen years ago. But in La Plata, they're gonna go on until they die ... which they'll probably do in their sleep.'
'What did you do?' I asked. 'How did you proceed?'
'Well, for the first week or so after we got our statistical shit together, we just sort of sat around and stared at each other,' Bobby said. 'I mean, we were prepared for something, but nothing quite like this. Even Waco doesn't prepare you for La Plata.' Bobby shifted restlessly and cracked his knuckles 39.
'Jesus, I hate it when you do that,' I said.
He smiled. 'Sorry, Bow-Wow. Anyway, we started geological tests, then microscopic 40 analysis of the water. I didn't expect a hell of a lot; everyone in the area has got a well, usually a deep one, and they get their water tested regularly to make sure they're not drinking borax, or something. If there had been something obvious, it would have turned up a long time ago. So we went on to submicroscopy, and that was when we started to turn up some pretty weird 41 stuff.'
'What kind of weird stuff?'
'Breaks in chains of atoms, subdynamic electrical fluctuations 42, and some sort of unidentified protein. Water ain't really H2O, you know - not when you add in the sulfides, irons, God knows what else happens to be in the aquifer 43 of a given region. And La Plata water - you'd have to give it a string of letters like the ones after a professor emeritus's name.' His eyes gleamed. 'But the protein was the most interesting thing, Bow-Wow. So far as we know, it's only found in one other place: the human brain.'
Uh-oh.
It just arrived, between one swallow and the next: the throat-dryness. Not much at yet, but enough for me to break away and get a glass of ice-water. I've got maybe forty minutes left. And oh Jesus, there's so much I want to tell! About the wasps' nests they found with wasps that wouldn't sting, about the fender-bender Bobby and one of his assistants saw where the two drivers, both male, both drunk, and both about twenty-four (sociological bull moose, in other words), got out, shook hands, and exchanged insurance information amicably 44 before going into the nearest bar for another drink.
Bobby talked for hours - more hours than I have. But the upshot was simple: the stuff in the mayonnaise jar.
'We've got our own still in La Plata now,' he said. 'This is the stuff we're brewing 45, Howie; pacifist white lightning. The aquifer under that area of Texas is deep but amazingly large; it's like this incredible Lake Victoria driven into the porous 46 sediment 47 which overlays the Moho. The water is potent 48, but we've been able to make the stuff I squirted on the wasps even more potent. We've got damn near six thousand gallons now, in these big steel tanks. By the end of the year, we'll have fourteen thousand. By next June we'll have thirty thousand. But it's not enough. We need more, we need it faster ... and then we need to transport it.'
'Transport it where?' I asked him.
'Borneo, to start with.'
I thought I'd either lost my mind or misheard him. I really did.
'Look , Bow-Wow ... sorry. Howie.' He was scrumming through his tote-bag again. He brought out a number of aerial photographs and handed them over to me. 'You see?' he asked as I looked through them. 'You see how fucking perfect it is? It's as if God Himself suddenly busted 49 through our business-as-usual transmissions with something like "And now we bring you a special bulletin! This is your last chance, assholes! And now we return you to Days of Our Lives."'
'I don't get you,' I said. 'And I have no idea what I'm looking at.' Of course I knew; it was an island - not Borneo itself but an island lying, to the west of Borneo identified as Gulandio, - with a mountain in the middle and a lot of muddy little villages lying on its lower slopes. It was hard to see the mountain because of the cloud cover. What I meant was that I didn't know what I was looking for.
'The mountain has the same name as the island,' he said. 'Gulandio. In the local patois 50 it means grace, or fate, or destiny, or take your pick. But Duke Rogers says it's really the biggest time-bomb on earth ... and it's wired to go off by October of next year. Probably earlier.'
The crazy thing's this: the story's only crazy if you try to tell it in a speed-rap, which is what I'm trying to do now. Bobby wanted me to help him raise somewhere between six hundred thousand and a million and a half dollars to do the following: first, to synthesize fifty to seventy thousand gallons of what he called 'the high-test'; second, to airlift all of this water to Borneo, which had landing facilities (you could land a hang-glider on Gulandio, but that was about all); third, to ship it over to this island named Fate, or Destiny, or Grace; fourth, to truck it up the slope of the volcano, which had been dormant 51 (save for a few puffs 52 in 1938) since 18o4, and then to drop it down the muddy tube of the volcano's caldera. Duke Rogers was actually John Paul Rogers, the geology professor. He claimed that Gulandio was going to do more than just erupt; he claimed that it was going to explode, as Krakatoa had done in the nineteenth century, creating a bang that would make the Squirt Bomb that poisoned London like a kid's firecracker.
The debris 53 from the Krakatoa blow-up, Bobby told me, had literally 54 encircled the globe; the observed results had formed an important part of the Sagan Group's nuclear winter theory. For three months afterward 55 sunsets and sunrises half a world away had been grotesquely 56 colorful as a result of the ash whirling around in both the jet stream and the Van Allen Currents, which he forty miles below the Van Allen Belt. There had been global changes in climate which lasted five years, and nipa palms, which previously 57 had grown only in eastern Africa and Micronesia, suddenly showed up in both South and North America.
'The North American nipas all died before 1900,' Bobby said, 'but they're alive and well below the equator. Krakatoa seeded them there, Howie ... the way I want to seed La Plata water all over the earth. I want people to go out in La Plata water when it rains - and it's going to rain a lot after Gulandio goes bang. I want them to drink the La Plata water that falls in their reservoirs, I want them to wash their hair in it, bathe in it, soak their contact lenses in it. I want whores to douche in it.'
'Bobby,' I said, knowing he was not, 'you're crazy.'
He gave me a crooked 58, tired grin. 'I ain't crazy,' he said. 'You want to see crazy? Turn on CNN, Bow ... Howie. You'll see crazy in living color.'
But I didn't need to turn on Cable News (what a friend of mine had taken to calling The Organ-Grinder of Doom) to know what Bobby was talking about. The Indians and the Pakistanis were poised 59 on the brink 60. The Chinese and the Afghans, ditto. Half of Africa was starving, the other half on fire with AIDS. There had been border skirmishes along the entire Tex-Mex border in the last five years, since Mexico went Communist, and people had started calling the Tijuana crossing point in California Little Berlin because of the wall. The saber-rattling had become a din 35. On the last day of the old year the Scientists for Nuclear Responsibility had set their black clock to fifteen seconds before midnight.
'Bobby, let's suppose it could be done and everything went according to schedule,' I said. 'It probably couldn't and wouldn't, but let's suppose. You don't have the slightest idea what the long-term effects might be.'
He started to say something and I waved it away.
'Don't even suggest that you do, because you don't! You've had time to find this calmquake of yours and isolate 61 the cause, I'll give you that. But did you ever hear about thalidomide? About that nifty little acne-stopper and sleeping pill that caused cancer and heart attacks in thirty-year-olds? Don't you remember the AIDS vaccine 62 in 1997?'
'Howie?'
'That one stopped the disease, except it turned the test subjects into incurable 63 epileptics who all died within eighteen months.'
'Howie?'
'Then there was-'
'Howie?'
I stopped and looked at him.
'The world,' Bobby said, and then stopped. His throat worked. I saw he was struggling with tears. 'The world needs heroic measures, man. I don't know about long-term effects, and there's no time to study them, because there's no long-term prospect 64. Maybe we can cure the whole mess. Or maybe-'
He shrugged 65, tried to smile, and looked at me with shining eyes from which two single tears slowly tracked.
'Or maybe we're giving heroin 66 to a patient with terminal cancer. Either way, it'll stop what's happening now. It'll end the world's pain.' He spread out his hands, palms up, so I could see the stings on them. 'Help me, Bow-Wow. Please help me.'
So I helped him.
And we fucked up. In fact I think you could say we fucked up big-time. And do you want the truth? I don't give a shit. We killed all the plants, but at least we saved the greenhouse. Something will grow here again, someday. I hope.
Are you reading this?
My gears are starting to get a little sticky. For the first time in years I'm having to think about what I'm doing. The motor-movements of writing. Should have hurried more at the start.
Never mind. Too late to change things now.
[ NOTE from ESL-Bits: The writing begins to deteriorate 67 as the mind of the narrator, Howard Fornoy, begins to deteriorate ]
We did it, of course: distilled the water, flew it in, transported it to Gulandio, built a primitive 68 lifting system - half motor-winch and half cog railway - up the side of the volcano, and dropped over twelve thousand five-gallon containers of La Plata water - the brain-buster version - into the murky 69 misty 70 depths of the volcano's caldera. We did all of this in just eight months. It didn't cost six hundred thousand dollars, or a million and a half; it cost over four million, still less than a sixteenth of one per cent of what America spent on defense 71 that year. You want to know how we razed 72 it? I'd tell you if I had more thyme, but my head's falling apart so never mend. I raised most of it myself if it matters to you. Some by hoof 73 and some by croof. Tell you the truth, I din't know I could do it muself until I did. But we did it and somehow the world held together and that volcano - whatever its name wuz, I can't exactly remember now and there izzunt time to go over the manuscript -it blue just when it was spo
Wait
Okay. A little better. Digitalin. Bobby had it. Heart's beating like crazy but I can think again.
The volcano - Mount Grace, we called it - blue just when Dook Rogers said it would. Everything when skihi and for awhile everyone's attention turned away from whatever and toward the skys. And bimmel-dee-dee, said Strapless!
It happened pretty fast like sex and checks and special effex and everybody got healthy again. I mean.
wait
Jesus please let me finish this.
I mean that everybody stood down. Everybody started to get a little purstective on the situation. The wurld started to get like the wasps in Bobbys nest the one he showed me where they didn't stink 74 too much. There was three yerz like an Indian summer. People getting together like in that old Youngbloods song that went cmon everybody get together rite 75 now, like what all the hippeez wanted, you no, peets and luv and
wt
Big blast. Feel like my heart is coming out thru my ears. But if I concentrate every bit of my force, my concentration
It was like an Indian summer, that's what I meant to say, like three years of Indian summer. Bobby went on with his resurch. La Plata. Sociological background etc. You remember the local Sheriff ? Fat old Republican with a good Rodney Youngblood imitashun? How Bobby said he had the preliminary simptoms of Rodney's Disease?
concentrate asshole
Wasn't just him; turned out like there was a lot of that going around in that part of Texas. All's Hallows Disease is what I meen. For three yerz me and Bobby were down there. Created a new program. New graff of circkles. I saw what was happen and came back here. Bobby and his to asistants stayed on. One shot hisself Boby said when he showed up here.
Wait one more blas
All right. Last time. Heart beating so fast I can hardly breeve. The new graph, the last graph, really only whammed you when it was laid over the calmquake graft 76. The calmquake graff showed ax of vilence going down as you approached La Plata in the muddle 77; the Alzheimer's graff showed incidence of premature 78 seenullity going up as you approached La Plata. People there were getting very silly very yung.
Me and Bobo were careful as we could be for next three years, drinke only Parrier Water and wor big long sleekers in the ran. so no war and when everybobby started to get seely we din and I came back here because he my brother I cant remember what his name
Bobby
Bobby when he came here tonight cryeen and I sed Bobby I luv you Bobby sed Ime sorry Bowwow Ime sorry I made the hole world ful of foals and dumbbels and I sed better fouls and bells than a big black sinder in spaz and he cryed and I cryed Bobby I luv you and he sed will you give me a shot of the spacial wadder and I sed yez and he said wil you ride it down and I sed yez an I think I did but I cant reely remember I see wurds but dont no what they mean
I have a Bobby his nayme is bruther and I theen I an dun riding and I have a bocks to put this into thats Bobby sd full of quiyet air to last a milyun yrz so gudboy gudboy everybrother, Im goin to stob gudboy bobby i love you it wuz not yor falt i love you
forgivyu
love yu
sinned (for the wurld),

n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财
  • Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
  • Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。
adv.同时发生地,同时进行地
  • The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
  • The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。
黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 ); 胡蜂; 易动怒的人; 刻毒的人
  • There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
  • We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中,而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中
adv.比较...地,相对地
  • The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
  • The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。
n.驴;傻瓜,蠢笨的人
  • He is not an ass as they make him.他不象大家猜想的那样笨。
  • An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden.驴能负重但不能超过它能力所负担的。
n.烟灰缸
  • He knocked out his pipe in the big glass ashtray.他在大玻璃烟灰缸里磕净烟斗。
  • She threw the cigarette butt into the ashtray.她把烟头扔进烟灰缸。
n.(箭头、鱼钩等的)倒钩( barb的名词复数 );带刺的话;毕露的锋芒;钩状毛
  • She slung barbs at me. 她说了些讥刺我的话。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • I would no longer uncomplainingly accept their barbs or allow their unaccountable power to go unchallenged. 我不会再毫无怨言地洗耳恭听他们带刺的话,或让他们的不负责任的权力不受到挑战。 来自辞典例句
n.鸟叫声,汽车的喇叭声; v.使汽车鸣喇叭
  • The sudden hoot of a whistle broke into my thoughts.突然响起的汽笛声打断了我的思路。
  • In a string of shrill hoot of the horn sound,he quickly ran to her.在一串尖声鸣叫的喇叭声中,他快速地跑向她。
adj.沉着的,镇静的,安静的
  • After the accident,the doctor gave her some pills to sedate her.事故发生后,医生让她服了些药片使她镇静下来。
  • We spent a sedate evening at home.我们在家里过了一个恬静的夜晚。
翻找,搜寻( rummage的过去式和过去分词 ); 已经海关检查
  • I rummaged through all the boxes but still could not find it. 几个箱子都翻腾遍了也没有找到。
  • The customs officers rummaged the ship suspected to have contraband goods. 海关人员仔细搜查了一艘有走私嫌疑的海轮。
adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 );从…提取精华
  • The televised interview was distilled from 16 hours of film. 那次电视采访是从16个小时的影片中选出的精华。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Gasoline is distilled from crude oil. 汽油是从原油中提炼出来的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地
  • The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
  • Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。
adj.片刻的,瞬息的;短暂的
  • We are in momentary expectation of the arrival of you.我们无时无刻不在盼望你的到来。
  • I caught a momentary glimpse of them.我瞥了他们一眼。
n.伪造的文件等,赝品,伪造(行为)
  • The painting was a forgery.这张画是赝品。
  • He was sent to prison for forgery.他因伪造罪而被关进监狱。
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
n.保龄球运动
  • Bowling is a popular sport with young and old.保龄球是老少都爱的运动。
  • Which sport do you 1ike most,golf or bowling?你最喜欢什么运动,高尔夫还是保龄球?
n.套接字,使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 );孔( socket的名词复数 );(电器上的)插口;托座;凹穴
  • All new PCs now have USB sockets. 新的个人计算机现在都有通用串行总线插孔。
  • Make sure the sockets in your house are fingerproof. 确保你房中的插座是防触电的。 来自超越目标英语 第4册
a.(表现出)恐惧的
  • The whole country was horrified by the killings. 全国都对这些凶杀案感到大为震惊。
  • We were horrified at the conditions prevailing in local prisons. 地方监狱的普遍状况让我们震惊。
n.抢夺,掠夺,强奸;vt.掠夺,抢夺,强奸
  • The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
  • He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。
n.芸苔( rape的名词复数 );强奸罪;强奸案;肆意损坏v.以暴力夺取,强夺( rape的第三人称单数 );强奸
  • The man who had committed several rapes was arrested. 那个犯了多起强奸案的男人被抓起来了。 来自辞典例句
  • The incidence of reported rapes rose 0.8 percent. 美国联邦调查局还发布了两份特别报告。 来自互联网
诱奸( seduce的过去式和过去分词 ); 勾引; 诱使堕落; 使入迷
  • The promise of huge profits seduced him into parting with his money. 高额利润的许诺诱使他把钱出了手。
  • His doctrines have seduced many into error. 他的学说把许多人诱入歧途。
n.(动物或植物体内的)薄膜( membrane的名词复数 );隔膜;(可起防水、防风等作用的)膜状物
  • The waste material is placed in cells with permeable membranes. 废液置于有渗透膜的槽中。 来自辞典例句
  • The sarcoplasmic reticulum is a system of intracellular membranes. 肌浆网属于细胞内膜系统。 来自辞典例句
adj.统计的,统计学的
  • He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
  • They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。
n.密集,密度,浓度
  • The population density of that country is 685 per square mile.那个国家的人口密度为每平方英里685人。
  • The region has a very high population density.该地区的人口密度很高。
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
v.弄皱,使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 )
  • She rumpled his hair playfully. 她顽皮地弄乱他的头发。
  • The bed was rumpled and strewn with phonograph records. 那张床上凌乱不堪,散放着一些唱片。 来自辞典例句
adj.明显的,无疑的;透明的
  • The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明,可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
  • The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。
n.配偶(指夫或妻)
  • Her spouse will come to see her on Sunday.她的丈夫星期天要来看她。
  • What is the best way to keep your spouse happy in the marriage?在婚姻中保持配偶幸福的最好方法是什么?
吵架,打架( brawl的名词复数 )
  • Whatever brawls disturb the street, there should be peace at home. 街上无论多么喧闹,家中应有宁静。
  • I got into brawls in the country saloons near my farm. 我在离我农场不远的乡下沙龙里和别人大吵大闹。
ad.根本地,本质地
  • I think we may have to rethink our policies fairly radically. 我认为我们可能要对我们的政策进行根本的反思。
  • The health service must be radically reformed. 公共医疗卫生服务必须进行彻底改革。
adv.神情激动地,不安地
  • He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇,努力忍着不哭出来。
  • He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。
n.被提名者;被任命者;被推荐者
  • His nominee for vice president was elected only after a second ballot.他提名的副总统在两轮投票后才当选。
  • Mr.Francisco is standing as the official nominee for the post of District Secretary.弗朗西斯科先生是行政书记职位的正式提名人。
n.小巷,胡同;小径,小路
  • We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
  • The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。
n.喧闹声,嘈杂声
  • The bustle and din gradually faded to silence as night advanced.随着夜越来越深,喧闹声逐渐沉寂。
  • They tried to make themselves heard over the din of the crowd.他们力图让自己的声音盖过人群的喧闹声。
n.牵引感v.用力拉,使劲拉,猛扯( tug的现在分词 )
  • Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. 汤姆捏住一个钮扣眼使劲地拉,样子显得很害羞。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
  • She kicked him, tugging his thick hair. 她一边踢他,一边扯着他那浓密的头发。 来自辞典例句
adj.跛的,(辩解、论据等)无说服力的
  • The lame man needs a stick when he walks.那跛脚男子走路时需借助拐棍。
  • I don't believe his story.It'sounds a bit lame.我不信他讲的那一套。他的话听起来有些靠不住。
n.(指人)指关节( knuckle的名词复数 );(指动物)膝关节,踝v.(指人)指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 );(指动物)膝关节,踝
  • He gripped the wheel until his knuckles whitened. 他紧紧握住方向盘,握得指关节都变白了。
  • Her thin hands were twisted by swollen knuckles. 她那双纤手因肿大的指关节而变了形。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.微小的,细微的,极小的,显微的
  • It's impossible to read his microscopic handwriting.不可能看清他那极小的书写字迹。
  • A plant's lungs are the microscopic pores in its leaves.植物的肺就是其叶片上微细的气孔。
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的
  • From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来,他好像有点怪。
  • His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。
波动,涨落,起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 )
  • He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table. 他用统计表显示价格的波动。
  • There were so many unpredictable fluctuations on the Stock Exchange. 股票市场瞬息万变。
n.含水土层
  • An aquifer is a water-bearing rock stratum such as sandstone and chalk.地下蓄水层是一些有水的岩石层,如沙岩和白垩岩。
  • The wine region's first water came from an ancient aquifer.用来灌溉这个地区葡萄园的第一批水来自古老的地下蓄水层。
adv.友善地
  • Steering according to the wind, he also framed his words more amicably. 他真会看风使舵,口吻也马上变得温和了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • The couple parted amicably. 这对夫妻客气地分手了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.可渗透的,多孔的
  • He added sand to the soil to make it more porous.他往土里掺沙子以提高渗水性能。
  • The shell has to be slightly porous to enable oxygen to pass in.外壳不得不有些细小的孔以便能使氧气通过。
n.沉淀,沉渣,沉积(物)
  • The sediment settled and the water was clear.杂质沉淀后,水变清了。
  • Sediment begins to choke the channel's opening.沉积物开始淤塞河道口。
adj.强有力的,有权势的;有效力的
  • The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
  • We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。
n.方言;混合语
  • In France patois was spoken in rural,less developed regions.在法国,欠发达的农村地区说方言。
  • A substantial proportion of the population speak a French-based patois.人口中有一大部分说以法语为基础的混合语。
adj.暂停活动的;休眠的;潜伏的
  • Many animals are in a dormant state during winter.在冬天许多动物都处于睡眠状态。
  • This dormant volcano suddenly fired up.这座休眠火山突然爆发了。
n.吸( puff的名词复数 );(烟斗或香烟的)一吸;一缕(烟、蒸汽等);(呼吸或风的)呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧
  • We sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his. 我们坐在那里,轮番抽着他那支野里野气的烟斗。 来自辞典例句
  • Puffs of steam and smoke came from the engine. 一股股蒸汽和烟雾从那火车头里冒出来。 来自辞典例句
n.瓦砾堆,废墟,碎片
  • After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
  • Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上,导致蛀牙。
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实
  • He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
  • Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候,她不走到真正要昏厥了,决不肯坐下来。
adv.后来;以后
  • Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏,然后吃饭。
  • Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来,这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。
adv. 奇异地,荒诞地
  • Her arched eyebrows and grotesquely powdered face were at once seductive and grimly overbearing. 眉棱棱着,在一脸的怪粉上显出妖媚而霸道。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
  • Two faces grotesquely disfigured in nylon stocking masks looked through the window. 2张戴尼龙长袜面罩的怪脸望着窗外。
adv.以前,先前(地)
  • The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
  • Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿,解释原先发生了什么。
adj.弯曲的;不诚实的,狡猾的,不正当的
  • He crooked a finger to tell us to go over to him.他弯了弯手指,示意我们到他那儿去。
  • You have to drive slowly on these crooked country roads.在这些弯弯曲曲的乡间小路上你得慢慢开车。
a.摆好姿势不动的
  • The hawk poised in mid-air ready to swoop. 老鹰在半空中盘旋,准备俯冲。
  • Tina was tense, her hand poised over the telephone. 蒂娜心情紧张,手悬在电话机上。
n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘,边沿
  • The tree grew on the brink of the cliff.那棵树生长在峭壁的边缘。
  • The two countries were poised on the brink of war.这两个国家处于交战的边缘。
vt.使孤立,隔离
  • Do not isolate yourself from others.不要把自己孤立起来。
  • We should never isolate ourselves from the masses.我们永远不能脱离群众。
n.牛痘苗,疫苗;adj.牛痘的,疫苗的
  • The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
  • She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。
adj.不能医治的,不能矫正的,无救的;n.不治的病人,无救的人
  • All three babies were born with an incurable heart condition.三个婴儿都有不可治瘉的先天性心脏病。
  • He has an incurable and widespread nepotism.他们有不可救药的,到处蔓延的裙带主义。
n.前景,前途;景色,视野
  • This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
  • The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式)
  • Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀,什么也没说。
  • She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩,装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
n.海洛因
  • Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
  • Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。
v.变坏;恶化;退化
  • Do you think relations between China and Japan will continue to deteriorate?你认为中日关系会继续恶化吗?
  • He held that this would only cause the situation to deteriorate further.他认为,这只会使局势更加恶化。
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物
  • It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
  • His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。
adj.黑暗的,朦胧的;adv.阴暗地,混浊地;n.阴暗;昏暗
  • She threw it into the river's murky depths.她把它扔进了混浊的河水深处。
  • She had a decidedly murky past.她的历史背景令人捉摸不透。
adj.雾蒙蒙的,有雾的
  • He crossed over to the window to see if it was still misty.他走到窗户那儿,看看是不是还有雾霭。
  • The misty scene had a dreamy quality about it.雾景给人以梦幻般的感觉。
n.防御,保卫;[pl.]防务工事;辩护,答辩
  • The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
  • The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。
v.彻底摧毁,将…夷为平地( raze的过去式和过去分词 )
  • The village was razed to the ground . 这座村庄被夷为平地。
  • Many villages were razed to the ground. 许多村子被夷为平地。 来自《简明英汉词典》
n.(马,牛等的)蹄
  • Suddenly he heard the quick,short click of a horse's hoof behind him.突然间,他听见背后响起一阵急骤的马蹄的得得声。
  • I was kicked by a hoof.我被一只蹄子踢到了。
vi.发出恶臭;糟透,招人厌恶;n.恶臭
  • The stink of the rotten fish turned my stomach.腐烂的鱼臭味使我恶心。
  • The room has awful stink.那个房间散发着难闻的臭气。
n.典礼,惯例,习俗
  • This festival descends from a religious rite.这个节日起源于宗教仪式。
  • Most traditional societies have transition rites at puberty.大多数传统社会都为青春期的孩子举行成人礼。
n.移植,嫁接,艰苦工作,贪污;v.移植,嫁接
  • I am having a skin graft on my arm soon.我马上就要接受手臂的皮肤移植手术。
  • The minister became rich through graft.这位部长透过贪污受贿致富。
n.困惑,混浊状态;vt.使混乱,使糊涂,使惊呆;vi.胡乱应付,混乱
  • Everything in the room was in a muddle.房间里每一件东西都是乱七八糟的。
  • Don't work in a rush and get into a muddle.克服忙乱现象。
adj.比预期时间早的;不成熟的,仓促的
  • It is yet premature to predict the possible outcome of the dialogue.预言这次对话可能有什么结果为时尚早。
  • The premature baby is doing well.那个早产的婴儿很健康。