Wisdom That Comes With Age
A wise old gentleman retired and purchased a modest home near a junior high school. He spent the first few weeks of his retirement in peace and contentment. Then a new school year began. The very next afternoon three young boys, full of youthful, after-school enthusiasm, came down his street, beating merrily on every trash can they encountered. The crashing percussion continued day after day, until finally the wise old man decided it was time to take some action.
The next afternoon, he walked out to meet the young percussionists as they banged their way down the street. Stopping them, he said, “You kids are a lot of fun. I like to see you express your exuberance like that. In fact, I used to do the same thing when I was your age. Will you do me a favour? I’ll give you each a dollar if you’ll promise to come around every day and do your thing.” The kids were elated and continued to do a bang-up job on the trashcans.
After a few days, the old-timer greeted the kids again, but this time he had a sad smile on his face. “This recession’s really putting a big dent in my income,” he told them. “From now on, I’ll only be able to pay you 50 cents to beat on the cans.”
The noisemakers were obviously displeased, but they did accept his offer and continued their afternoon ruckus. A few days later, the wily retiree approached them again as they drummed their way down the street.
“Look,” he said, “I haven’t received my Social Security check yet, so I’m not going to be able to give you more than 25 cents. Will that be okay?”
“A lousy quarter?” the drum leader exclaimed. “If you think we’re going to waste our time, beating these cans around for a quarter, you’re nuts! No way, mister. We quit!”
And the old man enjoyed peace and serenity for the rest of his days.
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A guy bought his wife a beautiful diamond ring for Christmas. A friend of his said, “I thought she wanted one of those pretty 4-wheel drive vehicles.”
“She did,” he replied, “But where in the world was I going to find a fake jeep!!”
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A woman met her husband at the train station after work for the ride home. He looked haggard, so she asked, “Rough day?”
“You bet it was,” he groaned. “Our computers were down, and we had to think all day long.”
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The patient was lying in bed, still groggy from the effects of the recent operation. His doctor came in, looking very glum.
“I can’t be sure what’s wrong with you,” the doctor said. “I think it’s the drinking.”
“Okay,” the patient said. “Can we get an opinion from a doctor who’s sober?”
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There once was a priest who had to spend the night in a hotel. He asked the hat check girl to come up to his room for dinner. After a while he started making passes, when she stopped him and reminded him he was a holy man.
“It’s OK,” he replied, “it’s written in the Bible.”
So after a wild night of sex, the hat check girl asked to see where in the Bible it says it’s okay to have wild, passionate sex.
The priest picks up the Bible off the dresser opens to the first page where someone wrote in pencil: “The hat check girl puts out!”
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A young man visiting a dude ranch wanted to be “macho”, so he went out walking with one of the hired hands. As they were walking through the barnyard, the visitor tried starting a conversation: “Say, look at that big bunch of cows.”
The hired hand replied, “Not ‘bunch,’ but ‘herd’.”
“Heard what?”
“Herd of cows.”
“Sure, I’ve heard of cows. There’s a big bunch of ‘em right over there.”
СОКРАЩЕНИЯ
Употребление сокращенных слов и словосочетаний является широко распространенным явлением в англо-американской научно-технической и общественно-политической литературе.
Встречаются три вида сокращений: буквенные, слоговые, усеченные слова. Рассмотрим каждую из этих категорий.
Буквенные сокращения
Буквенные сокращения образуются из начальных букв слов и словосочетаний. Такие сокращения слов произносятся полностью как исходные слова:
p [peidj] страница
c [kəθoud] катод
Сокращения словосочетаний произносятся чаще всего по буквам согласно их алфавитному названию:
e.m.f. [i: em ef] = electromotive force – электродвижущая сила
T.U.C. [ti: ju: si:] = Trades Union Council – совет тред-юнионов
В некоторых случаях начальные буквы сокращения сливаются и образуют как будто новое слово, которое произносится в соответствии с английской произносительной нормой:
UNESCO [ju:’neskou] = United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNO [‘ju:nou] = United Nations Organization
UFO [‘ju:fou] = Unidentified Flying Object
Буквенные сокращения номинативных словосочетаний могут принимать окончания множественного числа – букву –s (иногда отделяемую от сокращения апострофом во избежание слияния), а также окончание притяжательного падежа –‘s:
C.R.T’s = cathode-ray tubes – электронно-лучевые трубки
C.O.’sRV = Commanding Officers’ Rendezvous – встреча командующих
Среди буквенных сокращений имеется значительная группа сокращений латинских устойчивых словосочетаний:
a.m. [ei em] = ante meridiem – до полудня
p.m. [pi: em] = post meridiem – после полудня
Некоторые из них превратились лишь в символы, которые при чтении заменяются английским переводом:
i.e. = id est (читается that is) – то есть
e.g. = exempli gratia (читаестя for example) – например и т.д.
В языке имеется также ряд полусокращенных словосочетаний, в которых буквенному сокращению подвергся только первый элемент. При чтении этот сокращенный элемент произносится алфавитным названием одной буквы:
R-wire [‘a:rwaiə] = ring wire – провод, соединенный со звонком
A-bomb [‘eibom] = Atomic bomb – атомная бомба
H-bomb [‘ei∫bom] = Hydrogen bomb – водородная бомба
Слоговые сокращения.
Слоговые сокращения возникают из начальных слогов компонентов словосочетаний. Слоги образуют слитное написание , читающиеся как самостоятельное слово:
Benelux [‘benilaks] = Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg – Бельгия, Нидерланды, Люксембург
Warcor [‘wo: ko:] = war correspondent – военный корреспондент
Иногда, особенно в американской литературе, встречаются соединения начального слога первого элемента и конечного слога второго элемента словосочетания:
Bomron = Bomber squadron – эскадрилья бомбардировочной авиации
Усеченные слова
При этом способе сокращения может отпадать:
а) начальная часть слова, причем оставшаяся часть читается как новое слово:
chute [t∫u:t] = parachute – парашют
bus [bΛs] = omnibus – автобус
б) конечная часть слова:
min = minute – минута
fig. = figure – рисунок, чертеж
в) средняя часть слова:
Ry = railway – железная дорога
ft = foot – фут
г) отдельные элементы слова (главным образом гласные буквы):
opnl = operational – эксплутационный
hb = haemoglobin – гемоглобин
Три последние типа сокращений читаются как полнобуквенные слова. Усеченные слова могут образовывать словосочетания:
Sp. gr. = specific gravity – удельный вес
at. wt. = atomic weight – атомный вес
Список сокращений в алфавитном порядке обычно приводится в конце любого словаря в особом разделе.
При этом нужно иметь в виду, что вследствие широкого употребления сокращений в английском языке имеется много омонимических сокращений, что требует от переводчика внимательного отбора нужного значения, например:
EP = electric primer – электрический запал
EP = equipment part – склад технического имущества
EP = extreme pressure – предельное давление
EP = earth plate – заземляющая пластина
Написание сокращений не является стабильным. Одни и те же сокращения пишутся и прописными и строчными буквами, иногда они разделяются внутри точками или вертикальными черточками, например: S.S.или s/s = Steamship, иногда же пишутся слитно.
Как мы видели, часть сокращений (графические) употребляются только в письме, а в устной речи им соответствуют полнобуквенные слова. Другие же сокращения употребляются как в письме, так и в устной речи, и в этом случае мы имеем дело, по существу, с одним из видов словообразования.
Появившийся в языке неологизм – сокращение может существовать рядом с полнобуквенным словом, например:
Chute
Parachute
А иногда может и вытеснить его, например:
Bus (omnibus)
Cinema (cinematograph)
При переводе сокращений нужно учитывать, что в русском нучно-техническом и газетных стилях сокращенные слова употребляются значительно реже и поэтому многие английские сокращения необходимо развертывать в полнобуквенные слова.
УПРАЖНЕНИЕ
Переведите следующие предложения, обратив внимание на значение сокращений:
1. A.C. is widely used in everyday life, e.g. for heating and lighting purposes. 2. Besides the so-called small cal., there is another much greater unit of heat i.e. the kilocalorie or kilogram calorie. 3. Most substances are known in at least three different states, viz.: a solid, a liquid, and a gaseous form. 4. We know many forms of energy, e.g. electrical energy, chemical energy, atomic energy, etc. 5. At the atm. press. of 14.7 lb. per sq. in., the temp. of the b.p. of water is 100 C., but the temp. increases with the press. 6. In 449 AD the British Isles were invaded and conquered by several German tribes. 7. H-bomb and A-bomb are the weapons of mass destruction. 8. U.K. war potential was greatly reduced as a result of the WWII. 9. We joined the UNESCO and took active part in its work. 10. The first “baby-moon”, i.e. the artificial earth satellite was successfully launched in the USSR in 1957.
HMS COLUMBIA SINKS OFF SCAN.PEN.
It has been reported that HMS Columbia sank yesterday morning off the Scandinavian pen. 300 mi. from the nearest port after a collision with the USS Tiger.
The most part of the crew of the British ship is now aboard the Tiger, which will arrive in London at 14 p.m. tomorrow.
The collision occurred at 04.13 a.m. and the vessel sank at about 6 a.m.
Later it was announced that three sailors of the crew had been picked up by the s/s Tanda proceeding from the US eastern coast to GB, i.e. in easterly direction.
Practicum
A
SUPERSYMMETRY IN ATOMIC NUCLEI. A new experiment provides solid evidence that fermions (objects with half-integral spin) are both governed by the same nuclear physics laws. (The operative term for this egalitarianism, supersymmetry, should not be confused with a similar word used in particle physics to denote the equivalence of fundamental bosons and fermions such as photons and quarks, and of all the physical forces, at energies approaching 10 19 GeV.) The nuclear shell model, dating from 1948, attempts to describe the nucleons (protons and neutrons) in an atomic nucleus as sorting themselves into shells much as electrons do in the atom as a whole. A further innovation in nuclear theory, the interacting boson model (c 1917), holds that nucleons can even pair up within their shells, protons with protons and neutrons with neutrons. Individual nucleons are fermions but nucleon pairs are effectively bosons and as such are immune from Pauli’s exclusion principle. This allows the pairs to fall into a sort of ground state, leaving only the outermost nucleons to determine the nature of the nucleus’s energy level diagram (again analogous to an element’s chemistry being determined mostly by its outermost “valence” electrons). In atomic energy diagrams the levels are separated by, at most, electron volts; in nuclear diagrams the levels are typically separated by 100 keV or so. Studying these diagrams involves shooting beams (often of protons or deuterons) into a sample, in which nuclei can be promoted into a variety of excited states, and then detecting the telltale particles and high-energy photons (gammas) that come out. Nuclei that have an even number of protons and an even number of neutrons possess perhaps a dozen excited energy levels below energy of 2 MeV, and are relatively easy to probe experimentally. Pt-194 is an example. When the target nucleus has an odd number of either protons (e.g., Au-195) or neutrons (e.g., Pt-195), the number of low-energy excited states might be 20, making it harder to predict an energy diagram. Extending the interacting boson model further to nuclei with an odd number of both protons and neutrons (a nucleus which would consist, in effect, of many bosons and at least two unpaired fermions) entails another level of difficulty.
Harder still is experimentally mapping the energy level diagram for such a nucleus since it would have one hundred or more low-lying excited states. Nevertheless, an intrepid Swiss-German collaboration has now done exactly this for Au-196, a nucleus with 79 protons and 117 neutrons. Using high-resolution detectors they were able to sort through the complex energy-level terrain of Au-196, as well as those for the other three nuclei mentioned above, with results very close to theoretical predictions, demonstrating thereby that a single set of equations could indeed account for nuclei with all the different combinations of even or odd number of neutrons and protons. This is evidence for supersymmetry in nuclei: nuclear forces seem to treat fermions and bosons equivalently, at least for these four nuclei. According to Richard Casten of Yale, who is not a team member, this new research represents an important step forward in applying the interacting boson model.
FACULTY POSITIONS FOR WOMEN are increasing slowly in number at US university physics departments. A new AIP report (1997-1998 Academic Workforce Report) shows that in the recent half decade (from 1994 to 1998) the percentage of full professors who are women stayed the same (3%) but the percentage of women associate professors increased from 8 to 10% and assistant professors increased from 12 to 17%. Where do these new slots come from? Partly from a very modest increase (2%) in the overall size of the faculty and partly through retirement, which for several years has held steady at a rate of 2% (43% of these came as a result of retirement incentives).
NEW THEORY OF EPILEPSY. Epilepsy is a sort of hurricane in the brain; its onset is marked by a transition from the customary uncoordinated (perhaps even chaotic) firings of neighboring neutrons into (ironically enough) a periodic common firing. A hurricane’s awesome organization comes from rising tropical heat entraining surrounding air masses in a cyclonic motion. The organizing principle behind epileptic seizures, by contrast, is not yet known. At present the main way of studying seizures is with electroencepholograms (EEGs), which, useful as they are, can provide only a superficial (the electrodes sit on the scalp), average signal map blurred by the passage of the electrochemical currents through tissue, blood, and bone. To monitor a seizure with greater detail, one would like to fly right into the center of the storm. In recent years this has been possible with the implantation of “depth electrodes” in the “focus” region of the hippocampus (the staging point for some of the most intractable forms of epilepsy). This provides a spatial resolution of one to two orders of magnitude better than conventional electrodes.
Such work is being carried out at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, where researchers are now resenting a new theory of epilepsy. Epilepsy is a “dynamic disease,” arising not from any structural abnormality or from any chemical deficiency or surplus, but rather from the temporary excursion of a crtitical parameter outside of some acceptable window of behavior. Knowing what this parameter is could lead to new therapies. The IUPUI scientists suspect the mystery parameter might be the speed of communication among the synchronized neurons. And this speed, in turn, might be related to how glial cells (once thought of being no more than the “glue” between neurons) process calcium ions. Indeed, the glia are now known to be sensitive to neurotransmitters, which initiate waves of calcium concentration among the glia like water waves rolling around a swimming pool. Thus the coming and going of epilepsy might be related to a chemical wave in the brain.
A LINEAR DECELERATOR FOR NEUTRAL MOLECULES, identical in principle to a linear accelerator (LINAC) for charged particles, has been demonstrated by researchers in the Netherlands (Gerard Meijer, University of Nijmegen), providing a new way to cool molecules to ultra low temperatures. Previous methods for cooling molecules either depend upon the presence of a cold background gas and magnetic fields, or they are restricted to those molecules, which can be formed by combining already cold trapped atoms. In their demonstration, the researchers constructed a 35-centimeter long “Stark decelerator,” containing a succession of 63 pulsed electric fields. The decelerator can slow down any neutral molecule with a permanent dipole moment, i.e., a permanent separation of electric charge within the molecule. This includes any diatomic molecule composed of two different elements (such as NaCl), but also molecules like H2O and NH3. The researchers chose to demonstrate their technique with carbon monoxide (CO).
When a pre-cooled mixture of CO in xenon gas entered the linear decelerator, each molecule experienced the Stark effect; at every electric field, their internal energy shifted upward and caused them to lose some kinetic energy. After passing through all 63 electric-field stages, a subset of the CO molecules was slowed down from 225 m/s to 98 m/s, with an equivalent temperature of 30 millikelvin. Additional electric field stages could in principle cool the molecules further. This technique promises to be useful for cold-molecule physics, a field that is “expected to bloom in the next decade”, says Meijer.
B
Amelia Gentleman in Moscow and
Martin Kettle in Washington
Wednesday December 1, 1999
Relations between the US and Russia, seriously strained over the war in Chechnya, soured further yesterday as Russia caught an alleged CIA agent “red-handed” in Moscow, while Washington charged a US navy officer with passing submarine secrets to Russia.
The Moscow incident “will not help improve the climate between the two countries”, the Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov said on television.
However the arrest apparently was not discussed in a telephone conversation yesterday between Mr. Ivanov and the US secretary of state, Madeline Albright. Their conversation focused entirely on Russia’s military campaign in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, a foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow said.
In the Moscow incident, officers of the former KGB, now known as the federal security service (FSB), apparently caught a US diplomat on Monday in the act of obtaining secret Russian military papers.
Cheri Leberknight, officially a second secretary at the US embassy’s military-political section, but, according to the FSB a CIA station officer, was arrested “during an act of espionage”, the Itar Tass news agency reported.
Officials said that they had caught her trying to obtain state military secrets from a Russian citizen.
Ms Leberknight was detained briefly by the FSB and a number of incriminating “objects” were confiscated, Russia said. She was later released, but Mr. Ivanov said yesterday that he hoped she would “leave Moscow shortly”.
Alexander Zdanovich, the chief spokesman for the FSB, claimed that Ms Leberknight worked for the CIA. Her detention marked the first time in five years that spying allegations have been made against an American diplomat.
“Detention of a diplomat is a very serious action and we weighed everything before doing that, “ Mr. Zdanovich said. “WE had to do that because of danger that very serious secrets could be smuggled abroad.”
The US embassy in Moscow refused to comment on the arrest of Ms Leberknight, as did the US state department spokesman, James Rubin, at his regular Washington press briefing yesterday.
The incident came just hours after the US navy announced in Washington that a pretty officer had been charged with passing submarine bugging secrets to Russian in 1994.
Daniel King, 40, described as a code expert with an 18-year service record, remained in military custody yesterday at the Quantico marine base in Virginia, outside Washington, a day after he was charged with espionage and with disclosing classified information improperly, The charges carry the possibility of the death penalty if he is convicted.
Reports in the US said that Mr. King was arrested after allegedly sending a computer disk, loaded with top secret information, to the Russian embassy in Washington in 1994. Material on the disk was said to include details of the bugging of Russian submarines.
The timing of the two incidents was a coincidence, sources in both capitals suggested.
“Daniel King – if one believes what the US press is writing about him – supplied Russia with information about the bugging of submarines, Leberknight collected information about Russia’s nuclear potential. These are different issues,” an FSB source told the Interfax new agency in Moscow.
A Russian foreign ministry spokesman refused to confirm or deny whether Mr. King had spied for Moscow as alleged by the Americans.
However, the proximity of the two spying arrests, increasingly rare events in the post-cold war era, fanned speculation that the Moscow detention was in retaliation for the King case.
There was also speculation that the arrest of Ms Leberknight was designed to help Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, to portray himself as a tough leader in the run-up to next year’s presidential election. Mr. Putin, a strong supporter of the war in Chechnya, is an increasingly strong candidate to succeed the ailing Boris Yeltsin.
C
Words of Wisdom:
The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
Two wrongs are only the beginning.
Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before.
Love may be blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener.
Borrow money from pessimists: they don’t expect it back.
Half the people you know are below average.
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
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Letter home from school…
Dear Dad,
$chool i$ really great. I am making lot$ of friend$ and $tudying very hard.
With all my $tuff, I $imply can’t think of anything I need, $o if you would like, you can ju$t $end me a card, a$ I would love to hear from you.
Love, Your $on.
___________________________
Reply from dad…
Dear Son,
I kNOw that astronomy, economics, and oceanography are eNOugh to keep even an honor student busy.
Do Not forget that the pursuit of kNOwledge is a Noble task, and you can never study eNOugh.
Love, Dad
____________________________
The crime boss and his attorney meet with his accountant.
“Where’s the $3 million you embezzled from me?” demands the gangster.
The accountant is silent.
“Where’s my $3 million?” the crime boss shouts..
The lawyer explains, “Sir, the man is deaf. Allow me to translate.”
So using sign language, the attorney asks the accountant about the money, and the message is relayed back that the accountant knows nothing about it.
Furious, the crime boss pulls out a revolver and puts it to the deaf accountant’s head, screaming at the lawyer, “Ask him again where my money is!”
“Okay! Okay!” the deaf accountant sighs back.
“The money’s hidden behind the old toolshed in my back yard.”
“What did he say?” demands the enraged crime boss.
The attorney replies,
“He says you don’t have the guts to pull the trigger.”
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A blonde and a lawyer are seated next to each other on a flight from LA to NY.
The lawyer asks if she would like to play a fun game.
The blonde, tired, just wants to take a nap, politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks.
The lawyer persists and explains that the game is easy and a lot of fun.
He explains, “I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $5.00, and vise versa.”
Again, she declines and tries to get some sleep.
The lawyer, now agitated, says, “Okay, if you don’t know the answer you pay me $5.00, and if I don’t know the answer, I will pay you $500.00.”
This catches the blonde’s attention and, figuring there will be no end to this torment unless she plays, agrees to the game.
The lawyer asks the first question.
“What’s the distance from the earth to the moon?”
The blonde doesn’t say a word, reaches into her purse, pulls out a $5.00 bill, and hands it to the lawyer.
Okay says the lawyer, your turn.
She asks the lawyer, “What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?”
The lawyer, puzzled, takes out his loptop computer and searches all his references, no answer.
He taps into the air phone with his modem and searches the net and the library of congress, no answer.
Frustrated, he sends e-mails to all his friends and coworker, to no avail.
After an hour, he wakes the blonde, and hands her $500.
The blonde says, “Thank you”, and turns back to get some more sleep.
The lawyer, who is more than a little miffed, wakes the blonde and asks, “Well, what’s the answer?”
Without a word, the blonde reaches into her purse, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep.
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Isn’t it strange that the same people who laugh at gypsy fortune-telling take economists seriously.
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The Convention
Bill, Jim & Scott were at a convention together & were sharing a large suite on the top of a 75-story skyscraper.
After a long day of meetings, they were shocked to hear that the elevators in their hotel were broken & they would have to climb 75 flights of stairs to get to their room.
Bill said to Jim & Scott, “Let’s break the monotony of this unpleasant task by concentrating on something interesting.
I’ll tell jokes for 25 flights, Jim can sing songs for the next 25 flights and Scott can tell sad stories for the rest of the way.”
At the 26th floor, Bill stopped telling jokes & Jim began to sing.
At the 51st floor Jim stopped singing & Scott began to tell sad stories.
“I will tell my saddest story first,” he said. “I left the room key in the car!!!”
ТЕХНИКА ПЕРЕВОДА
«О, отрок, в переводах сущий,
Читай словарь на сон грядущий.
А утром, неги скинув марь,
Читай усиленно словарь!»
Из подблюдных песен военных переводчиков