《卫报》2006年6月15日文章：为什么厌恶足球的人也喜爱世界杯？
Why do football haters love the World Cup?
Gavyn Davies
Thursday June 15, 2006
The Guardian
In my time as BBC chairman, I discovered that GREg Dyke and Alastair Campbell did not seeeye-to-eye[1]on many things. But on one thing they did - the World Cup.
In one of our regular meetings at theBeeb[2],I complimented the director general for hisc________①of the 2002 tournament. "Thanks, but I hate the World Cup," said GREg. "It's the only time that you have to talk to bloodywimmin[3]about football." (（1）Incidentally, since Greg was not in the least sexist, he can't have meant "wimmin" in the technical sense. I am sure he must have been referring to football haters in general.)
Anyway, I doubt if interest in the World Cup has ever been GREater among football haters in general. World Cup fever passed what mathematicians call a "tipping point" sometime in the 1990s. It is hard to name the precise date, but it happened sometime between Gascoigne's tears in 1990 and Beckham'ss_______②off against Argentina in 1998. （2）Somewhere around then, the World Cup "tipped" from being a matter of religious fervour, but only among football fans, to an overwhelming national obsession.
Mathematicians have struggled to explain these tipping points in mass behaviour, but I think they aregetting there[4].In the case of the World Cup, they would build a model in which each person's underlying, intrinsic interest in the game is represented along a continuous scale from minus toplus infinity[5].Then they would hit the model with a shock, such as the onset of a World Cup, or thel________③of England winning it. This would determine the proportion of the population whose latent interest in football would be switched on during the tournament. But even if the shocks get GREater over time, you would not expect to see sudden upsurges in the degree of national interest, since there is no reason to believe that people's intrinsic interest in the game is distributed in alumpy[6]or discontinuous fashion.
Why, therefore, do we see sudden tipping points? They can be explained if the model allows people to be influenced not only by their own intrinsic interest in the game, but by the behaviour of others. For example, （3）people might observe that others are obsessed with the game, and might choose to imitate them so that they are not left out of conversations at work or among their friends.This kind of imitative behaviour can easily lead to tipping points, in which the number of football fans suddenly rockets upwards. Each person who becomes converted to the World Cup, along the original scale of intrinsic interest, now has the additional effect of converting others as well, so a positive feedback loop is established. All of a sudden, the number of World Cup fans jumps from, say, 30% to 70% over a very shortp_______④.
Mathematical models of thiss_______⑤can now explain many things, like the sudden drop in European birth rates in the 1980s, or the take-off in mobile phone useage in the 1990s, or abrupt drops in financial markets. （4）Or the otherwise inexplicable surge in wimmin's interest in David Beckham.
NOTES:
[1]eye to eye(on)对……见解一致
[2]Beeb n. (the)BBC的简称
[3]wimmin n.娘们
[4]get there(美俚)成功，达到目的
[5]plus infinity [数]正无穷大
[6]lumpy adj.起伏不定的，短暂杂乱的
ACTIVATE YOUR LANGUAGE
1．本文有好几处需要表示“……增加，激增”，但所用词汇和短语均不相同，避免了重复，这对我们写作很有借鉴意义。如：“upsurge”（v.急剧上升 n.高涨）；“rocket”（v.飞速上升，飞速增长）；“jump”（v.暴涨，突然显著增加）；“take off”（突然快速增长）；“surge”（n.&v.汹涌，激增）。
2．根据朗文当代英语词典，表示“快速、突然地增长”的词汇还有：shoot up暴涨；soar剧增；go through the roof 增长到极大乃至出乎意料的程度；spiral 不断急剧上升
3．此外，表示“价格、数字变少”（下降，减少）的常用词汇有：go down/come down下落，下降 - fall/drop降低，跌落，下跌 - decrease减少 - decline下降 - reduction减少 - cut削减 - plummet/plunge 骤然跌落- taper off 逐渐减弱- dwindle缩小 - slide滑落，下滑 - take a nosedive俯冲，猛跌
4.以上词汇或短语常见于新闻体文章，理解并学会使用这些词汇或短语，无论对我们的阅读还是写作，都大有裨益。
1．根据首字母提示和译文，填入适当单词：
①his c________ of the 2002 tournament（在2002年世界杯赛中的报道工作）
②Beckham's s_______ off against Argentina（贝克汉姆在对阿根廷的比赛中被罚下场）
③the l________ of England winning it（英格兰有可能赢得冠军）
④over a very short p_______（在很短时间内）
⑤Mathematical models of this s_______（这种数学模式）
参考答案：
①coverage 新闻报道 ②sending （send sb. off 比赛中因某人犯规而将其罚出场） ③likelihood ④period ⑤sort
2．翻译划线部分英文：
参考答案：
（1）顺便说一句，由于格雷格丝毫没有歧视妇女的倾向，他这里提到的“娘们”肯定不是指妇女。我敢保证，他指的肯定是广泛意义上的厌恶足球的人。（注释：incidentally指“附带提及，顺便说”；in the technical sense是指“从专门术语的意义上”）
（2）在此期间，世界杯热从一种只有球迷拥有的宗教狂热，上升到了一种全国性的迷恋情绪。
（3）当人们看到其他人为世界杯着迷的时候，可能也会选择模仿他人，从而疯狂地爱上世界杯。这样，在上班时与别人交谈或与朋友交谈时就不会插不上话。（注释：imitate指“效仿，模仿”，模仿的对象是其他人，模仿的内容就是“be obsessed with the World Cup”，翻译的时候应该补充说明一下。）
（4）而且还能解释否则很难解释的女性对贝克汉姆兴趣的猛增。
为何厌恶足球的人也爱世界
2023-01-07英汉翻译
