Vocabulary

（因大笑、情绪激动而）失控，忍不住大笑起来

"‘And he himself laughed so much that there were moments when he couldn’t read any further.’"

（电影类型）神经喜剧，怪诞喜剧；亦可指（人）古怪的、疯疯癫癫的

"I thoroughly enjoyed Ruby Hamilton’s piece on screwball comedy, but would quibble with the idea that screwball isn’t a democratic genre."

（通过夸张模仿）讽刺，嘲弄

"If Sullivan’s Travels is unsuccessful... it isn’t because it fails to send up Capra, but because it isn’t trying to."

弃权；投票时不表示支持或反对

"64 of the seventy MPs in attendance voted for it, with two votes against and four abstentions."

将（不同元素、主题等）缝合、拼接、融合在一起

"It genuinely attempts to sew together the comedy and the earnest sermonising."

（协定或政府）经各方同意而成立的；协商一致的；共识性的

"...the country had, since gaining independence in 1943, always had consensual governments backed by at least two-thirds of MPs..."

象征；标志；徽章（在此指壁画是英国共产主义艺术的标志性作品）

"So this emblem of British Communist art was invisible during most of the postwar Communist period..."

俯就；屈尊；傲慢的恩赐态度

"...there is a reason, beyond politics, that their art has had to be rescued from the condescension of art historians."

（法律、条约等）一纸空文；形同虚设的规定；无法执行或未被遵守的协议

"Indeed, Gemayel’s refusal to ratify it is the reason the agreement ended up a dead letter."

（内容）不严肃的、浅薄的、轻飘的；（风格）轻松愉快的

"It’s a film that speaks directly about the poor while keeping things frothy..."

（使问题、困难等）更严重，加重，尤指多种负面因素叠加

"...cases surging to about 6.4 million in the mid-1970s, owing to increasing resistance to insecticides like DDT and antimalarial drugs such as chloroquine, compounded by operational and logistical difficulties."

不可避免的；无法逃脱的

"...which Rachel Carson correctly saw as inescapable."

目光敏锐的；头脑清醒的；现实且不抱幻想的

"...it is clear-eyed about the current lack of suitable tools to achieve this goal."

大众的、通俗的；指罗马天主教提供给普通民众的恩典是朴素、平民化的。

"There was a self-mortifying thrill for upper-crust Anglicans in rubbing shoulders with Irish navvies or soldiers, who personified Rome’s demotic offer of grace."

（在此语境中）决定性论点；指诺克斯喜欢一个能一锤定音、终结所有争论的论据。

"Knox, who supported himself as a priest by writing detective stories, liked a clincher."

马虎的、邋遢的、草率的；在此指弥撒仪式虽显得粗糙、不精致，却反而更具真实感。

"While witnessing Mass often proved decisive in a conversion, the ritual was often most effective when most slipshod."

（在此语境中）充满斗争和痛苦的；指皈依者的命运不那么像战场般充满激烈的精神冲突。

"...the convert’s lot would look more domestic and less agonistic."

受折磨的指路明星 / 苦难的精神灯塔；指那些在痛苦中挣扎却成为天主教文学复兴标志性人物（如格林、沃等）的皈依者。

"If McDonagh had broadened her gaze from the tormented lodestars of the Catholic literary revival and included more of the (sometimes justifiably) obscure women writers than she does, the convert’s lot would look more domestic and less agonistic."

在边缘摇摇欲坠；指乔治·蒂勒尔在皈依天主教前，处于犹豫不决、即将做出最终决定的临界状态。

"In 1880, the clergyman George Tyrrell was teetering on the brink of conversion when he followed an exquisite Palm Sunday service at St Alban’s, Holborn, with Mass in the crypt at St Etheldreda’s..."

扭曲的成圣；指斯科比通过自杀这种大罪来换取他人安宁，一种被歪曲、悖谬的神圣化过程。

"Evelyn Waugh called Scobie's spiritual deal a ‘mad blasphemy, for the God who accepted that sacrifice could be neither just nor lovable’. Waugh suspected that Greene had taken the idea of Scobie's warped sanctification from the poet Charles Péguy."

荒谬绝伦的推论；指佩吉提出的‘除了圣人，没有人比罪人更了解基督教’这一不合逻辑、颠倒常理的结论。

"Péguy had made this ‘preposterous deduction’ as a morally erratic convert who needed to put a brave face on the fact that he could not take Communion."

（在此语境中）隐秘的、深奥难懂的；指格林赋予斯科比的精神折磨复杂且不为常人所知。

"The recondite agonies that Graham Greene inflicted on Scobie – let alone Jesus – in The Heart of the Matter (1948) repelled George Orwell."

（名词/形容词）庸俗的、没有文化教养的、反对艺术和知识的人（或事物）。

"But they also pledged to obey authorities who could be as philistine as they were dogmatic."

臭气、瘴气，一种被认为会引起疾病的、有害的、充满污染的空气或雾气

"‘Miasma’, a form of polluted air thought to be instrumental in spreading plague and other diseases, was a pervasive concern."

万灵药，能解决所有问题的方案，包治百病的方法

"The unicorn horn (usually a narwhal horn), a panacea against poisons, could be worth ten times its weight in gold."

平淡乏味的，不痛不痒的，旨在避免冒犯或争议

"At some point, the British publisher changed it to the anodyne ‘A Journey into the Medieval Mind’."

懒惰、倦怠、沮丧和绝望的复合状态，一种精神上的麻木和冷漠

"Jones begins his narrative with his own experience of the deadly sin of acedia."

疾病，尤指慢性的或严重的不适；常引申为社会或精神上的弊病

"This is a lost concept but a ubiquitous malady: a compound of boredom, sloth, depression and despair."

合并，混合，尤指将两个不同的概念或事物错误地或模糊地合为一体

"Pope Gregory the Great refined his system, conflating sadness with sloth and vainglory with pride, but adding the new sin of envy."

似乎无处不在的，非常普遍的

"This is a lost concept but a ubiquitous malady: a compound of boredom, sloth, depression and despair."

显示，表明，露出（某种品质或感觉）

"...because it evinced ‘a devotional attitude to food’ or obsession with a lesser good."

一个例子，尤指用于教诲或警示作用的道德故事或寓言

"Does this make Musa an exemplum of avarice?"

一段简短的、生动的描述性文字或场景，常用于文学作品中刻画人物或瞬间

"Apropos of avarice, Jones presents an extraordinary vignette."

（拉丁语）一个观点、学说或问题的典型或权威出处；最经典的引证来源。

"The locus classicus of Einstein’s objections to quantum mechanics is a paper from 1935, included in the Scientific Writings, which he wrote with two younger physicists, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen..."

在思想上或行动中与某个困难的问题、难题或矛盾进行艰苦的斗争和较量。

"At the time Einstein was wrestling with this problem, the accepted answer to the question ‘what is the speed of light relative to?’ was ‘the ether’."

表示犹豫、反对或提出异议，通常以一种礼貌或温和的方式拒绝。

"Einstein demurred. ‘My relationship to the Jewish people has become my strongest human bond,’ he said, but having devoted his life to the understanding of objective matters, ‘I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions.’"

（某种想法或图像）完全吸引或控制了我们，使我们无法摆脱其影响。

"In tracing philosophical confusion to its origin, Wittgenstein says, ‘a picture held us captive,’ and what he sought to achieve was the dismantling of that picture and its replacement by another."

对某个细节或困难的问题轻描淡写、掩盖或匆匆带过，以避免深入讨论。

"... Free Creations of the Human Mind, which glosses over his childhood with indecent haste, moving from his birth in Ulm on 14 March 1879 to his move to Bern at the age of 22 in a single page."

在此语境中指'充满（紧张、问题或风险的）'，形容一个议题或局面被棘手的、令人忧虑的元素所包裹。

"In this moment, when immigration and American identity have become such fraught populist issues..."

在此语境中指'（成群地）离开'、'搬家'，尤指突然或秘密地离开一个地方。

"...and then decamped (with much of her family) to Hollywood in the following decade after the Great Depression..."

意为'典型地'、'精髓地'，表示某事物是最纯粹、最具代表性、最完美体现其类别核心特征的形式。

"Much has been written about how quintessentially American musical forms like the blues, jazz, rock and roll, and hip-hop were largely the creations of African-Americans..."

在此语境中指'塑造者'、'奠基人'，比喻某事物的主要构建者和设计者，而不仅是字面上的建筑设计师。

"In this respect, Dorothy Fields was one of the great architects of what it means to be American."

在此语境中指'狂热的'、'躁动不安的'，形容一种高度兴奋、紧张或活跃的氛围，带有一种近乎病态或失控的能量。

"Dorothy grew up in the febrile artistic environment of Broadway during the teens and twenties..."

意为'不可磨灭地'、'永久地'，指某事物留下的印记或影响无法被擦除或遗忘。

"Popular music has always been one of the defining features of American life, exported around the world and indelibly linked with Americanness."

轻微的、挑逗性的刺激或兴奋，尤指与性相关的。

"‘Maybe using a word such as voyeurism is unkind’ – it isn’t – ‘but there is an element of titillation … Chris is regularly seized on by her (male) creator and displayed to the male gaze.’"