Vocabulary

乐观的、充满希望的；（对人、局势）抱有信心的

"Though Ellison's recourse to a sociological standard amounted to shifting the goalposts, the argument was consistent with his sanguine attitude towards the South."

家长式统治；以保护者自居、替他人做主的家长作风

"But he was soon put off by the patronage and paternalism of the American Communist Party's white leadership and its acceptance of Soviet policy on everything from the treatment of American fascists to the segregation of the armed forces."

（此处指）某个群体用来区分内外的信条或口号；陈腐的教条

"According to one view, the sanctity of the aesthetic was compromised by dealings with anything other than form, language and abstract ideas. As Howe characterised this position, 'literary judgment must not be defiled by political ideas.' It was a time, he later wrote, when '"the imagination" was allotted an absolute sovereignty, beyond challenge and sometimes beyond specification.'"

公开撤回（自己之前的言论或信仰）；认错并放弃

"He never recanted the claims in 'The World and the Jug', writing in 1985 that he was 'damned' if he was going to let Howe 'impose his narrowness of view upon whatever the hell I wrote'."

迂回说法；委婉回避直接表达的说话方式

"The essay itself contains no preaching, only circumlocution."

（沙皇或权威者的）敕令；专断的命令

"So that was its legacy: America's awareness of itself as a single, albeit fractured, continent. Having alluded to a split over 'fundamental issues', Ellison writes that in the novel, social reality is presented through the limited perspective of Henry Fleming, a Northern soldier 'only vaguely aware' of the war's 'larger issues'."

像回旋镖一样飞回原处；此处比喻期望最终反噬自身、事与愿违

"The recognition of his error, following what he calls 'much painful boomeranging of my expectations', forms the basis for the high-spirited reflection on self-sufficiency, or 'invisibility', that bookends the narrative."

傲慢、高高在上的神态或气派

"Success may bring a feeling of pressure or fear, pomposity or hauteur, a loss of hunger – all of them blocks to further growth."

（此处指）蓄意制造的迷惑、使人困惑的虚假说辞

"His writing reflected his belief that Marxism offered the best theoretical defence against the mystifications of racism, and that the organised workers' movement was the greatest hope for improving conditions for African Americans."

短暂的、转瞬即逝的——仅持续极短时间的

""Old" ruins were once homes or lives. The world is ephemeral."

殉道——为信仰而死；引申为为某种事业而牺牲

"It's a word in the language of sanctity, martyrdom and faith — an act of giving something up to a higher purpose, to a god or to a devil."

神圣性、不可侵犯性——属于神圣领域的特质

"It's a word in the language of sanctity, martyrdom and faith — an act of giving something up to a higher purpose, to a god or to a devil."

短暂性、无常——事物稍纵即逝的性质

"Transience may be an opportunity to tell complex stories though; "managed ruination" can be a way to write what the cultural geographer Caitlin DeSilvey refers to as an "anticipatory history" of absence."

河口的、河口湾的——与河流入海口相关的

"The complex estuarine networks are like arteries that get pumped full of seawater when storm surges come."

牺牲区——被有意选择放弃保护、以换取其他地区利益的地区

"Something must be sacrificed, and "sacrifice zone" is a term becoming increasingly common in discussions about environmental justice."

暴风鹱——一种北大西洋海鸟，外形似海鸥但属于鹱科

"Nesting fulmars stared from a window, and marsh orchids were growing out of the turf that covered the ruined walls."

有管理的撤退——一种有计划地放弃海岸防御、允许海水侵入的政策策略

"Locals mobilized against the process of "managed retreat," but the reputational damage was done and trust was destroyed."

（本文语境）轻蔑的、不予重视的——指官方文件轻视某事物的价值

"The Cumbria Coastal Strategy is dismissive of the value of the huts: "The majority of the frontage is undefended and there is no economic justification to providing significant investment at the present time.""

（本文语境）碉堡——一种混凝土军事掩体，尤指二战期间英国海岸防御工事

"They are more than crumbling walls or upturned pillboxes — they are reminders of our past, anchors that root us to a sense of history and landscape."

诡异的、令人不安的——一种同时熟悉又陌生的怪异感

"His book "Radical Hope" was focused on the Crow people of the American West and referred to an "uncanny sense of menace … a shared vulnerability that we cannot quite name.""

有管理的废墟化——有意识地、以策略性地允许建筑或遗址自然衰败的做法

"Transience may be an opportunity to tell complex stories though; "managed ruination" can be a way to write what the cultural geographer Caitlin DeSilvey refers to as an "anticipatory history" of absence."

预期性历史——一种书写方式，提前记录即将消失之物的历史，在它们消失之前捕捉其记忆

""managed ruination" can be a way to write what the cultural geographer Caitlin DeSilvey refers to as an "anticipatory history" of absence"

阈限性——处于过渡、边缘或中间状态的性质

"They communicate the passing of time and the ritual of life, and a bell's back and forthness expresses the liminality of the coast."

（本文语境）礼拜仪式——引申为一种庄严的、有仪式感的表达，此处'loss 的礼拜仪式'指铃声为消逝而敲响的庄重行为

"It was a liturgy of loss, but it was also a celebration and a call to joy and worship, perhaps even hope or the new dawn of a day."

（本文语境）涉禽——在浅水中觅食的鸟类，如鹬、鸻等

"Salty waters kill invertebrates on which nesting waders feed, and wash away habitat."

（本文语境）指最后一个个体——某一物种或事物中最后存活的成员或最后的遗存

"Her forthcoming book is "Endlings: A Journey into the Last of Things.""

破败的、摇摇欲坠的——形容建筑因年久失修而濒临倒塌

"It was an apocalyptic feeling: dark skies, rock defenses, the bones of former homes, tumbledown walls and shattered fences."

（英国特定历史语境）小块土地定居点——20世纪初英国工人阶级在海边购买廉价小块土地并建造简易住房形成的社区

"This is the Bush Estate, a so-called Plotland community, the name given to settlements that emerged during an early 20th century movement of working-class people buying cheap land on the seaside."

（本文语境）来世、死后存续——指事物在物理消亡后以另一种形式继续存在

"Perhaps those places that are gone could have an afterlife."

环礁——由珊瑚形成的环形岛屿或岛链，中间围有潟湖

"Tuvalu, a Pacific Island nation comprising small islets and low-lying atolls, is aiming to become the first "digital nation.""

（本文语境）（建筑/土地）屈服于、被（海浪）吞没——原指因疾病或压力而死亡或屈服

"For years, it acted as a sailor's beacon until it too succumbed to the waves."

地图学上的来世——指一个地方虽已实体消失，但在地图上仍然存在的状态

"Under the water, now lost to the waves, they live on in their cartographic afterlife."

（本文语境）海水对陆地的侵入、侵蚀——通常指军事上的突然入侵

"But inching ever closer for years, now its incursions are rapid and frightening."

（本文语境）抢救、挽救——从损失或灾难中保存有价值之物

"Even with an ending, we can consider what practices of courage, care and value to adopt, and what can be salvaged as we build defenses, remember and protect elsewhere."

（英国英语）奖学金、助学金——尤指颁发给研究生或艺术家的资助金

"He is a recipient of the Royal Photographic Society Environmental Bursary and is the 2026 Ampersand Foundation/Photoworks Fellow."

（本文语境）蜷缩、蹲伏——指房屋低矮地蹲在沙丘后面，仿佛在躲避风浪

"the collection of bungalows that form the village hunker behind protecting dunes and a sea wall"

（本文语境）使（船只）落入陷阱、使其困于危险之中——以网或陷阱捕捉

"Beneath the marbled brown, lie sand banks and submerged mountains waiting to ensnare unsuspecting ships."

本体论脆弱性——一个意义世界（而非仅仅是物理世界）可能崩塌的状态

"This is what Jonathan Lear called ontological vulnerability, the sense that a world of meaning might collapse."

用牛腿（托臂）结构支撑的角楼。corbel 指从墙面伸出的石制托架，corbelled 即以此方式建造的。此处指哲学家想象中的中世纪城堡那样的建筑特征。

"Picturing a fortified keep adorned with stepped gables and corbelled turrets, he was sorely disappointed on arrival to discover that the tower was a fourteen-storey Brutalist slab."

沼泽般的矛盾心理。marshy 指“沼泽般的、泥泞的”；ambivalence 指“矛盾心理”。此处比喻休谟引导党派读者进入一种模糊、不确定、无法简单站队的心理状态。

"Collectively, the essays on politics redirect determined partisans towards a marshy ambivalence."

“资产负债表式”的汉诺威支持者。比喻休谟像做账一样权衡斯图亚特与汉诺威王朝的利弊后，选择维持现状。

"When forced to pick a side, he engaged in a cool calculus of consequences, presenting himself, in the historian Max Skjönsberg's words, as a 'balance-sheet Hanoverian'."

狂热，极端主义。此处指意识形态党派如宗教般狂热的信仰。

"But Hume had doubts about how long such zealotry could be sustained."

魔术师，智者，古代波斯的祭司或占星家。此处比喻能够提供万能药的圣人或魔法师。

"The sceptic is the most likely candidate as a mouthpiece for Hume, but this character warns us off the assumption that the philosopher is a magus who can dispense panaceas – 'medicine of the mind' – 'beyond what can be known by common prudence or discretion'."

平淡无奇的，不会引起争议的，和缓的。此处指新名称 40 George Square 被批评为刻意回避争议、毫无政治锋芒的平庸之选。

"In a further twist, complaints emerged about the building's supposedly anodyne new name."

多源说，人类多起源论。认为不同人种有各自独立的创世起源，而非共同祖先。在18世纪被视为异端，因为它否定了《圣经》中亚当夏娃为全人类共同祖先的说法。

"Hume's remark in the footnote that there are 'four or five' different 'species of men' and his conclusion that 'a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men' point towards polygenism – the belief in the multiple creation of different races."

单源说正统教义。monogenist 指认为全人类同出亚当夏娃的立场；orthodoxy 指教会正统教义。此处指多源说对基督教正统人类起源观的挑战。

"If, as polygenists suggested, humanity as a whole did not descend from Adam and Eve, this not only undermined monogenist orthodoxy but also made nonsense of a central tenet of the Christian scheme of fall and redemption, the biological transmission of original sin."