Reader’s Digest
● Keep Fit to Prevent Flu
Regular exercise bolsters immunity to colds and flu, and sporty types who do succumb to colds tend to get off lightly. New researches found people who were physically active on five or more days a week were ill for almost half the time of those who managed only one workout a week. Cold symptoms were also up to 41% less severe in the very fit. (RD2012, January, p.18)
多運動 防流感
經常運動可加強免疫系統對抗感冒及流感；運動型的人即使患了感冒也比較容易痊癒。新的研究發現，身體比較活躍的人(每星期至少運動五天)比起每星期勉強運動一次的人，生病時間幾乎只有一半；感冒的症狀也比較輕微(降低41%)。 (RD2012, 1月號, 18頁)● Laughter
A man and his wife were arguing about who should make the coffee each morning.
The wife says, “You should do it, because you get up first.” The husband says, “No! Since you’re in charge of the cooking, you should do it.”
The wife replies, “No, even the Bible says that the man should make the coffee.” The husband is incredulous. He says, “I don’t believe that! Show it to me.”
So his wife opens the Bible, and points out how the top of several pages read: “HEBREWS”. (RD2012, January, p.145)
笑 譚
有一個人正在跟太太爭辯誰應該每天早上起來煮咖啡。太太說：「你該起來煮，因為你比較早起。」先生說：「錯了，煮東西是妳負責的，所以該妳煮。」太太反駁說：「錯的是你，連聖經都說該男人煮咖啡。」這位先生很懷疑，他說：「我不相信！除非妳指出來給我看。」
於是他老婆打開聖經，指出裡面有好幾頁最上頭都寫著：「HE BREWS。」 (RD2012, 1月號, 145頁)
【譯註】其實聖經上寫的是HEBREWS，是《希伯來人書》的意思，但這位太太硬把它拆成HE BREWS，變成「HE(他)BREWS(煮)。」● Get a Better Sleep (II)
- For a man, how he slept the night before will predict the quality of his interactions with his spouse the next day. For a woman, how she interacted with her spouse that day affects how she’ll sleep that night. So practice healthy conflict resolution during the day. In other words, avoid name-calling, and belittling the other person.
- If you like a firmer mattress and she likes a softer one, you don’t have to compromise. Get two singles, push them together, and use king sheets. Or you can buy a strap that attaches the mattresses to each other.
- Watching TV at night may seem relaxing, but it beams light into your eyes, which is an “alert” signal for the brain. Read a book before bed instead.
- One of the best cues for the body to go to sleep is a decrease in body temperature. I recommend sleeping in a very cool environment, about 19° C. A hot bath will increase your skin temperature, which eventually decrease your core body temperature. Take a bath a half hour or so before bedtime.
- If you have allergies, you’re probably better off with a feather pillow than one made of foam. Feather pillows are more likely to be enclosed in a tightly woven fabric that keeps dust mites out. Relatively few people are allergic to feathers. Besides, foam can exacerbate allergies because of its moisture content. (RD2012, January, p.74~75)
如何睡得更好(下)
1. 從一個男人前一夜睡得好不好，可以預知他隔日與配偶互動的品質。而一個女人白天與她的配偶互動好不好，會影響她當晚的睡眠品質。因此，在白天要練習解決衝突的健康方法，避免作人身攻擊，或貶損對方。
2. 如果你喜歡硬一點的床墊，而老婆喜歡軟一點的，那麼不必要遷就對方。買兩張單人床墊，並在一起，然後舖上特大號床罩。或者，你可以買一條寬布帶，把兩張床墊綁在一起。
3. 以為晚上看電視可以使人放鬆，其實它的光線映入眼簾時，對大腦卻是個「警示」訊號。因此，睡前看看書比較好。
4. 暗示身體該睡的最佳訊號是體溫的降低。我一向建議在非常涼爽的環境下睡覺(約攝氏19度)。洗個熱水澡會升高皮膚溫度，相對的會降低體內的溫度；因此在睡前約半個小時洗個熱水澡吧。
5. 如果你有過敏的問題，使用羽毛枕頭可能比使用泡沫塑膠枕頭好。羽毛枕頭使用的布料通常織得比較細密，塵蟎不容易跑出來；而對羽毛過敏的人相對而言非常少。另外，泡沫塑膠枕頭經常含有濕氣，會加劇過敏症狀。 (RD2012, 1月號, 74~75頁)
● Get a Better Sleep (I)
- You don’t need a really expensive mattress or one with a lot of space-age bells and whistles. There’s really only one good study on mattresses, and it confirmed the Goldilocks theory: most people prefer a mattress that’s not too hard and not too soft. So look for something medium firm.
- If the mattress is eight to ten years old, you should probably get a new one. Seventy-two percent of people we recently surveyed said they slept far better on their new mattress than they did on their old one.
- We expect to sleep for eight solid hours, but that’s actually not normal compared with global populations and our own evolutionary history. People naturally wake up two or three times a night. It’s worrying about it that’s the problem.
- If you’re not sleeping well, you may have acid reflux, even if you don’t feel heartburn. Try elevating your head by putting blocks under the top of the bed and sleeping on your left side.
- The classic line is that you shouldn’t go to bed angry, but that’s sometimes impossible. If you’re lying in the same bed but mentally throwing darts at each other, go and sleep on the couch. (RD2012, January, p.72~73)
如何睡得更好(上)
1. 你不一定需要一張昂貴的、具有一大堆花俏功能的床墊。我曾徹底地做過一個有關床墊的研究，結果證實了所謂的「中庸理論」：大多數的人喜歡不太硬又不太軟的床墊；因此賣一張軟硬適中的吧。
2. 如果一張床墊已經用了八到十年，你可能應該換一個新的。根據我們最近的調查，72%的人都說睡新床墊比睡舊床墊更有助於好眠。
3. 我們總希望能一次睡足八個鐘頭，但無論與世界各地的人相對照，或者從人類進化的歷史來看，那是不切實際的。一般人晚上都會自然甦醒兩三次；為此擔心才是真正的問題。
4. 如果你睡不安穩，你可能患了胃酸逆流(即使沒有感到胃痛)。想辦法用木塊將床頭墊高，使頭部高起，並且採取左側躺的姿勢睡覺。
5. 一個經典的說法是：勿含著怒氣上床；但通常不容易做到。如果你們倆同床共枕，但不斷將怒氣擲向對方，那麼請離床去睡沙發。 (RD2012, 1月號, 72~73頁)
● Seen on the Internet
Q: Why should you divide sin by tan?
A: Just cos.
網路偶拾
問：你為甚麼要sin(正弦)除以tan(正切)？
答：因為…所以…。
【譯註】在數學上，正弦(sin)除以正切(tan)等於餘弦(cos)；但cos又是because的俗寫。所以回答Just cos有兩種解釋：一是「因為要得到餘弦」，二是「因為…所以…」。
● Laughter
Sarah, the self-appointed arbiter of the town’s morals, stuck her nose into everyone’s business. She made a mistake, however, when she accused her neighbor George of being an alcoholic after spotting his pickup parked in front of a bar one afternoon.
“George, everyone who sees it there will know what you’re doing,” she told him in front of their church group.
He ignored her and walked away. Later that evening, George parked his pickup in front of Sarah’s house and left it there all night. (RD2012, January, p.144)
笑 譚
莎拉自命為鎮上的衛道人士，到處包打聽，管所有人的閒事。但有一次踢到鐵板了；某天晚上她看到鄰居喬治的車子停在一間酒吧前面，就指控喬治是個酒鬼。她當著教堂所有會眾的面對他說：「喬治，每個人看到車子停在那裏，都知道你在裡面幹甚麼。」
他不發一語掉頭就走。當天晚上，喬治把車子停在莎拉家門前，並且停了一整晚。 (RD2012, 1月號, 144頁)● Ask Aunty
Dear Aunty,
When our daughter was married four years ago, we paid for the wedding, and the bill was substantial. Our son is getting marries in two months, and my wife and I are debating whether we have to spend on him what we spent on our daughter. Trying to be Fair
Dear Trying,
Step away from the calculator. Step away! The rules of arithmetic provide poor guidance for the distribution of parental resources. (In some families, for instance, a child with special needs might require lots of parental time, effort, and money that his siblings could never expect.) So OK, you bought your daughter a fancy wedding. That does not mean you have to dole out the same cash for your son’s nuptials. But if he and the bride need financial help, and you have the means, go ahead and help. (RD2012, January, p.134)
請問張阿姨：
四年前我們家女兒結婚時，錢是我們出的，那可是一筆可觀的費用。我們的兒子兩個月後也要結婚了；我跟我老婆正在爭論，是否比照當時花費在女兒身上的錢給兒子辦婚禮。 想要一視同仁的人 敬上
親愛的「想要」：
離算盤遠一點吧——越遠越好！算術裡的所有運算規則都無法告訴你如何分配父母的資源。(比如說吧，在某些家庭裡，有特殊需要的小孩可能會分得父母較多的時間、心力、和金錢，其份量之大是其餘兄弟姊妹不敢奢望的。) 你們已經替女兒辦了一場風風光光的婚禮。過去的事就算了；你們沒有必要再擠出同樣多的錢來辦兒子的婚禮。但如果這對新人需要你們的資助，而你們也負擔得起，那麼幫幫他們也無妨。 (RD2012, 1月號, 134頁)
● Sound Smarter
A couple of redundancies have crossed our desks recently: new recruit and refer back. A rookie forward is simply a recruit, who by definition is new – and if you’re referring to the 2010 NBA draft for info on him, of course you’re looking back. So recruit and refer should both stand on their own. (RD2012, January, p.28)
正確用字
最近有兩個贅詞已經在我們的文案上出現，即「new recruit (新進的新球員)」和「refer back (往前追查)」。一個新進的(球隊的)前鋒，我們只要稱之為「新球員(recruit)」即可，因為「新球員」本身就有新進的意思在內。另外，假如你想在2010年的NBA新球員名冊上去查他的資料，用「追查(refer)」即可，因為追查當然是「往以前」去追查。因此，recruit和refer兩者都應該以單獨使用為宜。 (RD2012, 1月號, 28頁) ● Laughter
A teacher says “OK, class. Today we’re going to be talking about the tenses. If I say ‘I’m beautiful,’ what tense am I using?”
A boy raises his hand and says, “Obviously the past tense, Miss.” (RD2012, January, p.144)
笑 譚
女老師：「來，各位同學；今天我們要講的是『時式』。假如我說：『我很漂亮』，那麼我用的是甚麼式？」
有位男生舉手回答：「老師！那顯然是過去式。」 (RD2012, 1月號, 144頁)● Human “Buy”ology
Have you ever gone to the shops not intending to buy anything, only to come home with an armful of goods that you were seemingly powerless to resist? It turns out that you weren’t being greedy; clever marketing strategies were at work to tap into your most primal urges.
The hard sell starts long before you hit the mall. Advertisers use everything from product placement in movies and TV shows to subliminal messaging and sex to get us to buy their goods. Already softened up by these subtle messages, once you arrive at the mall, the pitch for your cash begins in earnest. There are confusing layouts designed to keep you browsing for as long as possible, aromas that put you in a carefree holiday mood and clothes that are simply begging to be touched and tried on. The odds of you leaving the mall without buying anything are slim. (RD2011, December, p. 44)
人類"購物學"
你是否曾經到過賣場，本來不打算買任何東西，結果卻禁不住誘惑，大包小包抱回家？老實說，你不是個貪心的人，但賣場高明的行銷策略發揮了功能，激起你最原始的慾望。這種強有力的推銷技倆遠在你踏入賣場之前就開始了。廣告業者無所不用其極，在電影及電視節目裡作產品的置入行銷，灌輸訊息於潛意識中，甚至於利用性暗示，來引誘你購買他們的產品。在不知不覺當中，這些訊息軟化了你的心防；你一旦踏入賣場，掏空你的荷包的動作就熱烈展開了。賣場裡讓人搞不清楚方向的動線設計可使你在裡面盡量逛久一點；裡面的氣味讓你浸淫在一種無憂無慮的假日氣氛當中；而所有的衣服都在引誘你摸摸看、試穿看看。在此情況下，你能夠空手離開賣場的可能性簡直是微乎其微。 (RD2011, 12月份, 44頁)
● Worried Sick
Dear Dr. Billy,
I hear this weird popping sound when I move my right wrist in a certain way. Sometimes I feel it, too. I’m 16, so it’s not early arthritis or some other serious condition … is it?
It’s perfect normal for your joints to make a popping sound. The noise is produced when little bubbles burst in the lubricating fluid surrounding the joint. Some people even get a kick out of making this sound by cracking their knuckles, which, by the way, is not a particularly bad thing to do. Taken to excess, knuckle cracking may cause minor damage, including stretching of the surrounding ligaments, which can cause a decrease in grip strength. But many parents are convinced it will lead to arthritis, and it’s just not so. Wrist popping, although it has never achieved the widespread popularity of knuckle cracking, is probably equally innocuous. (RD2011, December, p. 61)
疑心病
親愛的霹靂醫師：
當我以某種方式活動右手腕時，都會聽到奇怪的「喀」聲。有時候沒有「喀」聲，但有奇怪的感覺。我今年才16歲，這該不會是早期的關節炎或什麼嚴重的病症吧…搞不好是喔？
你的關節會出現怪聲是完全正常的；這種雜音的產生，是因為一些小氣泡闖入關節四周的潤滑液內所致。有些人甚至以扳弄手指關節產生這種聲響來當作樂趣——這事其實並無特別的壞處。但玩過頭的話，扳弄手指關節可能會導致輕微的損害，包括周圍韌帶的鬆弛，造成握力的減低。但有許多父母都認為那會導致關節炎，其實不會。扳弄手腕發出「喀」聲雖然不像扳弄手指關節那麼普遍，但可能是一樣的無害。 (RD2011, 12月份, 61頁)
● Deep Roots
If you’re a science enthusiast, you’re likely familiar with the quark, a particle that’s smaller than a proton or neutron. But do you know the word’s origin? When physicist Murray Gell-Mann proposed the existence of the particle in 1964, he turned to a line from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake to name it: “Three quarks for Muster Mark!” The deeper root is perhaps the German Quark, or curd, slang for “nonsense”. (RD2011, December, p. 27)
字源探索
如果你是一個業餘的科學愛好者，你可能對「夸克」很熟悉；它是一種比質子或中子還要小的粒子。但你知不知道這個字的來源？當物理學家莫瑞．葛曼在1964年提出這種粒子的存在時，他引用喬艾斯所著《芬尼根的守靈》一書中的一句話：「給馬克大師的三聲夸克！」來為這種粒子命名。更往前追溯，這個字可能來自德國俚語Quark，或curd，意思是「荒謬」。 (RD2011, 12月份, 27頁)
[譯註1]在物裡學裡，質子與中子被歸類為「重子(baryon)」，由夸克組成(左圖顯示三個夸克構成一個質子)。而電子被歸類為「輕子(lepton)」，與夸克無關。
[譯註2]目前實驗已經證實夸克的存在。● Laughter
I was with my son when he received a text message. I noticed the screen was blank and remarked, “Why, they haven’t written anything.”
“It’s from my girlfriend,” he told me. “We had an argument and she’s not talking to me.” (RD2011, December, p. 50)
笑 譚
我兒子跟我在一起時，收到了一封簡訊。我發現手機螢幕是空白的，就說：「嘿！寄件人根本一個字也沒寫。」
他告訴我：「是我女朋友寄來的啦。我們剛吵過架，她到現在都不跟我說話。」 (RD2011, 12月份, 50頁)● Workaholic
Are you a workaholic? Many lurk among us. They secretly enjoy business trips. They stay late in the office when they don’t have to. They like Monday mornings. I realized my father was a workaholic the time he failed to come home from work for four months. And his office was only five minutes down the street. While many dads phone to say “I’ll be late for dinner,” my father used to call and say: “I’ve got a bit of overtime, I’ll be home next September.”
Like all real workaholics, my father claimed to be tolling for the good of the family. But don’t believe them: when my dad passed away, there was nothing in his coffers.
A psychologist told me that workaholics eventually start thinking of their families as an unproductive corporate department that occasionally needs attention. “The danger sign is when they start using business terminology at home,” she said.
(RD2011, December, p. 34)
工作狂(幽默短文)
你是個工作狂嗎？在我們週遭就有許多工作狂潛伏著。他們打心底很喜歡出差工作。他們經常在辦公室裡待到很晚，其實根本沒有必要。他們愛死了每個禮拜一早上。我第一次知道我老爸是個工作狂，是有一次他竟然工作了四個月沒有回家；而他的辦公室離家只有五分鐘的路程。許多當爸爸的會打電話說：「我會晚點回家吃晚飯」，但我老爸經常打電話說：「我會待久一點，明年九月一定回家」。像所有工作狂一樣，我老爸總是宣稱他是為全家人的福祉在打拚；但別相信這種鬼話：他過世時兩手空空，什麼也沒留下。
一位心理學家曾經告訴我說，工作狂到頭來會把家庭當作一個不事生產的組織部門， 偶爾關心一下就可以了。她說：「工作狂們開始在家裡用職場術語打官腔時，就是個警訊。」 (RD2011, 12月份, 34頁)
● Swan Serenade
From the swirl of its initial letter to its sighing vowel and feather-soft final consonant, the very word – “swan” – suggests grace. Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky did not, after all, write Duck Pond.
To the ancients, the appearance of a swan, with its effortless glide on the mirror of a lake and lovely, unfurling flight, signaled evanescence and evoke immortal longings. Socrates, Plato tells us, heard the song of a swan on the day of his death. The Valkyries, in the guise of swans, bore their fallen heroes to the Valhalla of Norse mythology. Pythagoras believed the souls of poets passed into swans, a fitting entombment that turns the tattered phrase “poetry in motion” into a truly lyrical trope.
The swan, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova writes, “floats through the centuries” and into the turning wheel of seasons. Swans on their autumnal migratory flight – the celestial flutter of wings, the silver arrow of a flock splitting the sky – evoke poetic melancholy. Shadows lengthen. Days shorten. Another year closes in. Still, there is the reassuring uplift of fairy tales like Hans Christian Andersen’s duckling turned swan, with its metamorphosis from plain to princely. (RD2011, December, p.90)
天鵝小夜曲
從具有迴旋感的字首，到彷彿一聲輕嘆的母音，以及宛如羽毛般輕柔的字尾，swan(天鵝)這個字蘊含著無限的雅思。俄國作曲家柴可夫斯基並未作出「鴨池塘」(而是作出「天鵝湖」)，良有以也。
古代的人看到天鵝輕盈地滑過平靜無波的湖面上，及其展翅翱翔的美妙姿態，無不感嘆人生苦短，因而激起對於永生的憧憬。柏拉圖告訴我們，蘇格拉底在過世當天，曾經聽到一隻天鵝的歌聲。在北歐神話中，神殿侍女們化身為天鵝，將戰死的英雄們載往英靈殿。畢達格拉斯認為，詩人死後靈魂會化為天鵝；這是個適當的歸宿，並將本來被濫用的名詞「飛動之詩」(poetry in motion，職業摔角用語)變成一個真正具有詩意的隱喻。
俄國女詩人安娜‧阿赫瑪托娃曾經寫道：天鵝「漂流在時間的長河裡」，最後進入季節輪迴的轉輪中。牠們在秋天的遷徙飛行——雙翅美妙無比的拍動，人字形的隊伍像一支銀箭掠過天際——此時黯夜漸長，白晝漸短，一年將盡，這總是讓人興起詩樣的愁悵。不過，牠們仍有振奮人心的一面，例如安徒生童話裡醜小鴨變天鵝的故事，讓人懷抱由平凡變璀璨的希望。 (RD2011, 12月份, 90頁)
● Sound Smarter
正確用字
Ensure及insure這兩個字經常被搞混，因為它們的發音基本上是相同的。但是它們的意義卻截然不同：假如你打算說的是「確定」，那就用ensure這個字。但假如你想要為你的汽車取得碰撞理賠，那你就要替它保個險(insure)。茲舉一例句︰將新車開離停車場之前，你要確定(ensure)先為它保個險(insure)。 (RD2011, 12月份, 28頁)
● Kamikaze
The first Mongol invasion of Japan Hakata Bay , Japan Japan
Everything was going swimmingly for the Mongols – that is, until a typhoon blew in like a blast from Poseidon’s own shotgun and wiped out a third of the fleet. The remaining Mongols retreated after only one day of fighting, which is saying something when you consider that these are the same folks who conquered everything from Korea to Hungary
But no matter, they weren’t the type to give up. They simply came back with a second, far larger invasion in 1281. This force consisted of 140,000 soldiers, more than 4,000 ships, and a two-pronged invasion via China and Korea
By mid-August, the enormous Mongol fleet met the Japanese at the very sameHakata Bay
By mid-August, the enormous Mongol fleet met the Japanese at the very same
神風(かみかぜ)
蒙古人第一次入侵日本是在1274年的11月；當時出動了約2萬3千名士兵和800艘船艦。他們在海上航行了兩個禮拜之後，在日本的博多(はかた)灣建立了灘頭堡。當11月19日 的「文永之戰」(ぶんえいの役)開打時，日軍甚至發生偵察錯誤而跑錯其他島嶼的烏龍事件；其實這情有可原，因為當時日本實在太弱了。
對蒙古人來說，一切都太順利了——我是說，在一個颱風來襲之前。這個颱風的威力像海神親自開砲帶來的狂飆一般，摧毀了1/3的艦隊船隻。殘留的蒙古人只苦戰了一天就倉皇撤退了；當年由高麗到匈牙利橫掃千軍的同一批人竟然落得如此下場。
雖然如此，他們不是那種會輕易放棄的人。他們在1281年發動了第二次的、規模更大的入侵行動。這次的兵力高達14萬人，船艦4000多艘，分別由中國和高麗出發，以鉗形之勢進攻。這是蒙古人統治的元朝當局所能發動的最大兵力，由忽必烈汗領軍。你可以想像，這第二次的征日行動，他們是志在必得。
到了8月中，浩浩蕩蕩的蒙古艦隊和日軍再度在博多灣遭遇，也就是7年前兩軍對壘的同一地點。這一次，大多數的軍艦再度被一個颱風摧毀。 (RD2011, 12月份, 116頁)
● Ask Aunty
Dear Aunty,
My husband swears in front of our boys. I don’t think this sets a good example for our kids, but he says they’ll hear it on the playground anyway. Do you have any strategies for getting him to stop? Prudish Mum
Dear Prudish,
Your husband needs a time-out. Sit him down and explain: Yes, your boys will hear profanity, sexual language and violent threats on the playground. That’s why parents must set standards, so kids will grow up to be good citizens rather than bathroom-humour barbarians. Set the rule for all of them: No cursing. Tell them you are doing it for the future of the civilized world! (RD2011, November, p.133)
請問張阿姨︰
我老公老是在我們兒子面前罵髒話。我不認為這是孩子們的好榜樣；但他辯稱反正孩子們在別的地方(例如遊戲場)也會聽到髒話。請問妳有好對策來糾正他嗎？ 循規蹈矩的媽媽 敬上
親愛的循規蹈矩︰
妳老公需要一番再教育。叫他坐下來，告訴他︰沒錯，你兒子會在遊戲時聽到各種褻瀆的、淫穢的語言，和暴力威脅的話語。這正是做父母的必須建立一套標準，使孩子們長大成為好公民，而不是只會搞廁所幽默的野蠻人。對他們父子訂下一條規矩︰不准罵髒話。告訴他們，妳這麼做是為了這個文明世界的未來著想。 (RD2011, 11月號, 133頁)
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