硕士研究生英语长难句解析与佳句赏析【5】

      

When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend. 【佳句赏析1】①A lateral move that hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming “I wanted to spend more time with my family”.

 

Curiously, some two-and-a-half years and two novels later, my experiment in what the Americans term “downshifting”has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality. 【佳句赏析1】②I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of “having it all”, preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the pages of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything.

 

③I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build-up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of “juggling your life”, and making the alternative move into “downshifting” brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12-hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on “quality time”.

 

In America, the move away from juggling to a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle is a well-established trend. Downshifting-also known in America as “voluntary simplicity” has, ironically, even bred a new area of what might be termed anticonsumerism. There are a number of bestselling downshifting self-help books for people who want to simplify their lives; there are newsletter's, such as The Tightwad Gazette, that give hundreds of thousands of Americans useful tips on anything from recycling their cling-film to making their own soap; there are even support groups for those who want to achieve the mid- '90s equivalent of dropping out.

 

④While in America the trend started as a reaction to the economic decline——after the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late’80s——and is still linked to the politics of thrift, in Britain, at least among the middle-class downshifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our lives.

 

⑤For the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the’80s, downshifting in the mid-'90s is not so much a search for the mythical good life——growing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into one——as a personal recognition of your limitations.

文章长难句分析与佳句赏析

长难句分析：

①A lateral move that hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming “I wanted to spend more time with my family”.

该句是由although连接含转折语气的两个分句：A lateral move prompted me to abandon my career和I covered my exit。前一分句的主语A lateral move由that引导的定语从句修饰；后一个分句中用了in the manner of（以…的方式）和by claiming两个结构做谓语covered的方式状语。

②I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of “having it all”, preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the pages of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything.

该句子的特点是定语修饰成分较多。句子主干是I have been transformed from a advocate... into a woman...，advocate后接of短语做定语，woman后接who引导的定语从句做定语。preached by...分词结构用做philosophy的定语。having it all指“拥有一切”，是一种享乐主义；settle for a bit of everything中的settle意为“安定、定局”，整个短语指“什么都只要一点”，即“很容易满足”。

③I have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her much-publicized resignation from the editorship of She after a build-up of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of “juggling your life”, and making the alternative move into “downshifting” brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status.

该句子结构较复杂，有多重结构。第一重是主句的主干I have discovered ... that ...，that引导宾语从句：abandoning...and making…brings with it far greater rewards，其中主语由并列的动名词结构构成；第二重结构是：that前的插入语是个省略倒装句，as代替主句的谓语discover，其正常顺序应是perhaps Kelsey will discover after...；that后宾语从句中含有一个比较结构…brings greater rewards than…。Juggling one’s life中“juggle”原意为“耍把戏”，短语里借用它暗含的“忙个不停”的意思，表示“忙忙碌碌地生活”。

④While in America the trend started as a reaction to the economic decline—after the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late-80s—and is still linked to the politics of thrift, in Britain, at least among the middle class downshifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our lives.

该句子的特点是while引导两个分句形成对照，前一分句的主干是in America the trend started as a reaction and is still linked to the politics；后一分句的主干是in Britain we have different reasons；破折号之间的插入语是前一分句的时间状语；逗号间的插入语at least among…是后一分句的状语。

⑤For the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the ’80s, downshifting in the mid-90s is not so much a search for the mythical good life—growing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into one—as a personal recognition of your limitations.

该句子的主干中含有一个具有比较意义的结构downshifting is not so much a search...as a personal recognition（与其说是追求，不如说是个人认识）。句首介词结构For the women…做句子的状语，表示“对于…来说”，两个破折号之间的两个并列的动名词短语growing…and risking…是对前面名词the mythical good life的解释。

佳句赏析：

①When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend.

“When...it never occurred to me that...”结构可以表达在过去某个时间里没法预料到后来要发生的事情。如：Nobody can really expect his future. When Steven Doglas worked as a salesman in a shoes-shop of a small town, it never occurred to him that he might become a superstar three years later.

②My experiment in what the Americans term “downshifting” has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality.

该句子中tired excuse使用了英语中的一种修辞格，叫“转移形容词”，即形容词形式上修饰事物，实际上用来修饰人所具有的某种品质、性质或状况。这种修辞格的使用使句子具有修辞效果，简洁而地道。类似的用法有：sleepless night（不眠之夜），wise decision（明智的决定），respectful distance（敬而远之），word by painful word（一字一字吃力地）smiling words（微笑着交谈）。句子中tired excuse指的是作者声称“累了想陪陪家人”来作为辞职的借口。

 

核心词汇与超纲词汇

(1) it occurred to sb. that… /it occurred to sb. to do sth. 某人想到某事，如：It occurred to her that she might adopt homeless child.（她突然想到可以收养一个孤儿）；Didn’t it occur to you to close the window.（你就没有想到要关窗户吗？）。

(2) prompt（v.）促使，鼓动（n.）提示, 付款期限（a.）敏捷的, 迅速的, 即时的

(3) profile（n.）剖面，侧面，外形，轮廓；态度，姿态，对公众暴露的程度（degree of exposure to public notice），能见度，如：keep a low profile保持低姿态

(4) downshift（v.）原意指减低汽车的档，这里指“放慢生活节奏”。文中出现的downshifting是它的动名词形式，downshifter指的是选择这种生活的人

(5) preach（v.）传教，宣讲；宣扬，鼓吹

(6) resignation（n.）辞职（书）；放弃，顺从；resign（v.）辞职；听任

(7) doctrine（n.）教条，学说，主义

（8）anticonsumerism（n.）反消费主义。Anti-前缀意为“反，防”；-ism后缀意为“…主义”。如：antiwar反战的，anti-colonial反殖民主义的，materialism唯物主义，adventurism冒险主义

（9）drop out退学，脱离，不参与，[美俚](因对传统的道德观和价值观不再抱幻想而)退出习俗社会，逃避现实

（10）redundancy（n.）冗余；redundant（a.）多余的

(11) mythical（a.）神话的，虚构的；myth：（n.）神话，虚构的故事

(12) 本文词汇的特点是复合词的使用，包括(1) 副词+过去分词=复合形容词，文中出现了much-publicized多次公开宣称的 well-established稳定存在的，类似的词有：well-informed消息灵通的，much-needed非常需要的；(2) 动词+副词=名词，文中出现了build-up增大，类似的词有：put-off推迟，get-together联欢会，check-up检查；(3) 名词+名词=复合名词，文中出现了self-help自助，cling-filum（粘附+薄膜）保鲜膜，类似的词有：book review书评，traffic light街灯