07年“高級英語”課文逐句翻譯（8）

　　Lesson Nine The Trouble with Television

　　電視的毛病

　　The Trouble with Television

　　要擺脫電視的影響是困難的。

　　It is difficult to escape the influence of television.

　　假如統(tǒng)計的平均數字適用于你的話，那么你到20歲的時候就至少看過2萬個小時的電視了，從那以后每生活10年就會增加1萬小時。

　　If you fit the statistical averages， by the age of 20 you will have been exposed to at least 20，000 hours of television. You can add 10，000 hours for each decade you have lived after the age of 20.

　　筆起看電視，美國人只有在工作和睡眠上花時間更多。

　　The only things Americans do more than watch television are work and sleep.

　　稍微計算一下，使用這些時間的一部分能夠做些什么。

　　Calculate for a moment what could be done with even a part of those hours.

　　聽說一個大學生僅用5000小時就可以獲得學士學位。

　　Five thousand hours， I am told， are what a typical college undergraduate spends working on a bachelor's degree.

　　在1萬個小時內你能學成一個天文學家或工程師，流利掌握幾門外語。

　　In 10，000 hours you could have learned enough to become an astronomer or engineer. You could have learned several languages fluently.

　　如果你感興趣的話，你可能讀希臘原文的荷馬史詩或俄文版的陀思妥耶夫斯基的作品；如果對此不感興趣，那你可以徒步周游世界，撰寫一本游記。

　　If it appealed to you， you could be reading Homer in the original Greek or Dostoyevsky in Russian. If it didn't， you could have walked around the world and written a book about it.

　　電視的毛病在于它分散了人們的注意力。

　　The trouble with television is that it discourages concentration.

　　生活中幾乎一切有趣的、能給人以滿足的事都需要一定的建設性的、持之以恒的努力。

　　Almost anything interesting and rewarding in life requires some constructive， consistently applied effort.

　　即使是我們中間那些最遲鈍、最沒有天才的人也能做出一些事來，而這些事使那些從來不在任何事情上專心致志的人感到像是奇跡一般。

　　The dullest， the least gifted of us can achieve things that seem miraculous to those who never concentrate on anything.

　　但電視鼓勵我們不做出任何努力，它向我們兜售即時的滿足，它給我們提供娛樂，使我們只想娛樂，讓時間在毫無痛苦中消磨掉。

　　But Television encourages us to apply no effort. It sells us instant gratification. It diverts us only to divert， to make the time pass without pain.

　　電視節(jié)目的多樣化成了一種麻醉劑而不是促進思考的因素。

　　Television's variety becomes a narcotic ， nor a stimulus.

　　它那系列的、多變的畫面引著我們跟著它走。

　　Its serial， kaleidoscopic exposures force us to follow its lead.

　　觀眾無休無止地跟著導游游覽：參觀博物館30分鐘，看大教堂30分鐘，喝飲料30分鐘，然后上車去下一個參觀點，只是電視的特點是時間分配以分秒計算，而所選擇的內容卻多為車禍和人們的互相殘殺。

　　The viewer is on a perpetual guided tour： 30 minutes at the museum， 30 at the cathedral， 30 for a drink， then back on the bus to the next attraction —-except on television.， typically， the spans allotted arc on the order of minutes or seconds， and the chosen delights are more often car crashes and people killing one another.

　　總之許多電視節(jié)目取代了人類最可貴的一種才能，即主動集中自己的注意力，而不是被動地奉送注意力。

　　In short， a lot of television usurps one of the most precious of all human gifts， the ability to focus your attention yourself， rather than just passively surrender it.

　　吸引并抓住人們的注意力是大多數電視節(jié)目安排的主要目的，它加強了電視是有利可圖的廣告的載體的作用。

　　Capturing your attention —and holding it—is the prime motive of most television programming and enhances its role as a profitable advertising vehicle.

　　節(jié)目安排使人生活在無休止的恐懼之中，唯恐抓不住人們的注意力——不管是什么人的注意力都擔心。

　　Programmers live in constant fear of losing anyone's attention—anyone's.

　　避免造成這一局面的最有把握的辦法就是使一切節(jié)目都保持簡短，不要使任何人的注意力過于集中而受到損害，而要通過多樣化、新奇性、動作和行動不斷地提供刺激。

　　The surest way to avoid doing so is to keep everything brief， not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety， novelty， action and movement.

　　很簡單，電視的運作原則就是迎合觀眾的注意力跨度短這一特點。

　　Quite simply， television operates on the appeal to the short attention span.

　　這只是最簡單的解決辦法，但它逐漸被看作是電視這一宣傳媒體特定的，內在固有的性質，是必須履行的職責，似乎是司令薩爾諾夫或另一個令人敬畏的電視創(chuàng)始人給我們傳下了刻有銘文的石碑，命令電視上出現的一切節(jié)目均不得使觀眾需要片刻以上的注意力。

　　It is simply the easiest way out. But it has come to be regarded as a given， as inherent in the medium itself； as an imperative， as though General Sarnoff， or one of the other august pioneers of video， had bequeathed to us tablets of stone commanding that nothing in television shall ever require more than a few moments' Concentration.

　　要是運用得恰當，這倒也無可厚非。

　　In its place that is fine.

　　如此出色地把使人忘卻現實的娛樂作為大規(guī)模推銷工具加以包裝，誰又能反對這樣一種宣傳媒介呢？

　　Who can quarrel with a medium that so brilliantly packages escapist entertainment as a mass-marketing tool？

　　但是我看到了它的價值現已充斥于這個國家及其生活之中。

　　Rut I see its values now pervading this nation and its life.

　　認為快速思維和快餐食品一樣影響著生活節(jié)奏很快、性情急躁的公眾，這已成了時髦的看法。

　　It has become fashionable to think that， like fast food， fast ideas are the way to get to a fast-moving， impatient public.

　　在新聞方面，我認為這種做法不能進行很好的交流。

　　In the case of news， this practice， in my view， results in inefficient communication.

　　我懷疑電視每晚的新聞節(jié)目真正能夠被人吸收和理解的有多少。

　　I question how much of television's nightly news effort is really absorbable and understandable.

　　其中許多被形象地描述為“機關槍不連貫地點射”。

　　Much of it is what has been aptly described as “machine-gunning with scraps.”

　　我認為這種技術是與連貫性作對的。

　　I think the technique fights coherence.

　　我認為它最終會使事情變得枯燥乏味、無足輕重（除非伴以恐怖的畫面），因為任何一件事，如果你對它幾乎一無所知，那么它差不多總會是枯燥乏味、使人覺得無足輕重的。

　　I think it tends to make things ultimately boring and dismissible （unless they are accompanied by horrifying pictures） because almost anything is boring and dismissible if you know almost nothing about it.

　　我認為，電視迎合觀眾注意力跨度短的做法不僅會造成交流不暢，而且還會降低文化水平。

　　I believe that TV's appeal to the short attention span is not only inefficient communication but decivilizing as well.

　　想一想電視要達到的那些極不慎重的原則吧：必須避免復雜性，用視覺刺激來代替思考，語言的精確早已是不合時宜的要求。

　　Consider the casual assumptions that television tends to cultivate： that complexity must be avoided， that visual stimulation is a substitute for thought， that verbal precision is an anachronism.

　　它可能已過時，但我所受的教育告訴我思想就是語言，是按準確的語法規(guī)則組織起來的。

　　It may be old-fashioned， but I was taught that thought is words， arranged in grammatically precise

　　在美國存在著讀寫能力的危機。

　　There is a crisis of literacy in this country.

　　據一項研究估計，約有3000萬美國成年人是“功能性文盲”。他們的讀寫能力無法回答招聘廣告，或讀懂藥瓶上的說明。

　　One study estimates that some 30 million adult Americans are “functionally illiterate” and cannot read or write well enough to answer the want ad or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.

　　能讀