雙語+MP3|美國學(xué)生世界地理09 揚(yáng)基人的定居地

A PAIR of shoes, a hat, or an automobile we should not call “New” if they were a year old, but there is a corner of our country which is 300 years old and yet we call it “New.” About 300 years ago people from England, across the ocean, came to the northeast corner of the United States and made their homes there. So the six States north of New York, where they settled, we call New England. The Indians tried to call the white people “English,” but the best they could say was “Yenghees” or “Yankees,” just as a child in trying to say “brother” might say “buddy”—so the people of New England we still call “Yankees.” We could put all six States of New England in any one of several States out West; but though the New England States are small in size, they are big in many other things.
一雙鞋、一頂帽子或一輛汽車，如果用了一年，我們就不該說它們是“新”的了，但是美國有一個(gè)角落已經(jīng)有300年歷史了，我們卻仍然稱它是“新”的。大約300年前，一群人從英國穿過大洋，來到了美國的東北角，在那里安家落戶。因此，紐約北面他們安家的六個(gè)州被叫做“新英格蘭”。印第安人把這些白人叫做英格蘭人，但是他們盡了最大努力也只能發(fā)音為“英給”或者“揚(yáng)基”，就像牙牙學(xué)語的孩子可能會(huì)把“哥哥”喊成“得得”一樣——因此我們現(xiàn)在仍然把新英格蘭地區(qū)的人叫做“揚(yáng)基”。我們可以把新英格蘭的六個(gè)州一起放到西部任何一個(gè)州里面；不過盡管新英格蘭這些州面積小，在其他許多方面卻很強(qiáng)大。
The largest and most important city of New England is Boston, named after a town in old England. Many people call Boston “the Hub,” by which they mean to say that the rest of the World turns round Boston, for the hub of a wheel you know is the center, around which the rest of the wheel turns. Of course, the World really turns around the North and South Poles and these Poles are the real hubs of the World; so people are only joking when they say the World turns round Boston.
新英格蘭最大、最重要的城市是波士頓，是以老英格蘭一個(gè)鎮(zhèn)子命名的。很多人把波士頓叫做“輪轂”，也就是說他們認(rèn)為整個(gè)世界是繞著波士頓轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)的；你知道輪轂就是車輪的中心，整個(gè)輪子都繞著輪轂轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)。當(dāng)然，世界實(shí)際上是圍繞南北極而轉(zhuǎn)的，南北兩極才是世界真正的中心；所以人們說世界圍著波士頓轉(zhuǎn)不過是開玩笑而已。
Rocks and cold weather are bad for farming. New England in winter is very cold and it also is very rocky, so rocky that men make their fences of stones gathered off the fields. The cold and the rocks make it very hard to grow things there, but there are many, many waterfalls in New England, and waterfalls can be used to turn the wheels of factories to make things, so what people chiefly do in New England is to make things for the rest of the United States—thousands of different kinds of things—not big things such as railroad tracks and bridges that they make in Pittsburgh, but small things for a person’s use, such as needles and pins, watches and clocks, boots and shoes. If the wheels of the factories are turned by waterfalls they are called mills. Nowadays, most of the waterfalls are used to make electricity, and the electricity is used to run the machinery, but the factories are still called “mills.”
如果一個(gè)地方天氣寒冷，土地里有很多石頭，肯定不適合種莊稼。新英格蘭的冬天非常寒冷，土地里滿是石頭，當(dāng)?shù)厝松踔劣锰锢飺斓氖瘔K建圍墻，所以這個(gè)地區(qū)不適合種東西。但是當(dāng)?shù)赜泻芏嗪芏嗟钠俨?，而瀑布可以讓工廠的輪子轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)起來，人們就可以制造各種產(chǎn)品。因此新英格蘭人的主要工作就是為美國人生產(chǎn)東西——成千上萬種不同的產(chǎn)品——不是像匹茲堡生產(chǎn)的鐵軌或橋梁之類的大東西，而是個(gè)人日用的小東西，比如說縫衣針、別針、手表、鐘、靴子和鞋子等等。如果工廠的機(jī)輪是由瀑布推動(dòng)的，我們就把它叫做磨坊?，F(xiàn)在大多數(shù)的瀑布都是用來發(fā)電，電又用于開動(dòng)機(jī)器，但工廠仍然被叫做“磨坊”[1]。
When-I-was-a-boy my idea of perfect happiness was to go barefoot. In some countries rich and poor alike go barefoot all the time, but in America almost every one wears shoes all the time. One of the chief things they make in these New England mills is shoes. In New England they make enough shoes for every pair of feet in the United States. Shoes wear out, so we can understand why the mills should keep on, year after year, making so many shoes. But in one of the States—the one with the Indian name, Connecticut—they make pins—enough for every man, woman and child in the United States to use 100 every year. What becomes of so many pins, do you suppose? They don’t wear out like shoes, and yet they disappear—billions of pins every year.
我小的時(shí)候認(rèn)為最快樂的事就是光著腳丫走路。在有些國家，不管是窮人還是富人，都終年光著腳走路，但在美國，幾乎人人一年四季都穿著鞋。新英格蘭的那些工廠里主要產(chǎn)品之一就是鞋子。當(dāng)?shù)厣a(chǎn)的鞋子足以讓美國人“人腳”一雙。鞋子會(huì)穿壞，所以我們都知道為什么那些工廠年復(fù)一年不停地生產(chǎn)那么多的鞋子。但是在其中一個(gè)州——一個(gè)有著印第安名字的州，康涅狄格州——生產(chǎn)別針，每年都造出足夠美國每一個(gè)男人、女人、孩子用上100枚的別針。你想過沒有，這么多的別針都哪里去了呢？它們又不像鞋子那樣會(huì)用壞，但是它們都不見了，丟失了。每年丟失的別針有幾十億枚呢。
And clocks and watches—they make millions of them too, though one clock or one watch should last a person a lifetime—little watches for the wrist and little clocks for mantelpieces and big clocks for clock towers.
他們還生產(chǎn)各種鐘表，數(shù)量成千萬，有戴在腕上的小手表，也有掛在壁爐架上的小鐘，還有掛在鐘塔上的大鐘，各種品種，應(yīng)有盡有——盡管一個(gè)鐘或一塊表一個(gè)人可用一輩子。
And spools of thread—enough thread is made in one mill in a single day to wind round the World—that is, over twenty-five thousand miles of thread in one mill in one day!
產(chǎn)品還有成卷成卷的線——一家工廠一天所生產(chǎn)的線能繞地球一周，也就是相當(dāng)于兩萬五千英里！
Where do you spend your vacation ? Do you go to the seashore, to the mountains, or “down on a farm”? New England is the vacation land of many people from other parts of the country, because there are so many lakes, waterfalls, and beautiful spots for camps, streams for fishing, and in the Maine woods places for hunting deer and moose. In New Hampshire there are mountains called the White Mountains, and one of these White Mountains, named after our First President, is Mount Washington. It is the highest mountain in this part of the country, and just because it is so high many people like to climb it. Some people are like that. In Vermont, which means “green mountain,” there are the Green Mountains, not as high as the White Mountains, but very lovely. All along the New England coast are places where people go to spend the summer, because this part of the country is so cool while the rest of the country is so hot.
你一般在哪里度假呢？去海灘，山上，還是下到農(nóng)莊？新英格蘭是個(gè)度假勝地，美國其他地區(qū)的很多人都到那兒去度假，因?yàn)槟抢镉泻芏嗪础⑵俨?，還有很多風(fēng)景優(yōu)美的景點(diǎn)可以野營(yíng)，有可以釣魚的小溪流，緬因州的森林里還有鹿和麋可以供人捕獵。在新罕布什爾州有一些山叫做懷特山脈，其中有一座山是以美國第一任總統(tǒng)命名的，叫“華盛頓山”。它是這一地區(qū)最高的山，正因?yàn)樗芨?，很多人都喜歡去爬這座山。有些人就是愛好登山。佛蒙特州的名字意思是“綠色的山”，佛蒙特州內(nèi)有座格林山，還真是“綠色的山”[2]，格林山不像懷特山脈那么高，但風(fēng)景很美。新英格蘭沿海地區(qū)是避暑勝地，因?yàn)楫?dāng)其他地區(qū)都很炎熱的時(shí)候，這一地區(qū)卻非常的涼爽。
But the thing that New England is proudest of is its schools and colleges. In their mills they make Things, in their schools and colleges they make Men. Two of the most noted colleges in the country are in New England—Yale is in Connecticut and Harvard is in Massachusetts. Harvard is the oldest college in the United States.
但是新英格蘭最引以為傲的是它的學(xué)校和大學(xué)。在工廠里，他們生產(chǎn)物品，在學(xué)校和大學(xué)里，他們培養(yǎng)人才。全美最知名的大學(xué)中有兩所就在新英格蘭——位于康涅狄格州的耶魯大學(xué)和位于馬薩諸塞州的哈佛大學(xué)。哈佛大學(xué)是美國最古老的大學(xué)。
Sticking out from Massachusetts like a long, bent finger, as if beckoning to people across the water to come to Massachusetts, is a piece of land called Cape Cod. It was named in honor of the codfish, because codfish are so plentiful in those waters, and they are caught and dried in great quantities and shipped everywhere.
馬薩諸塞州沿海有塊地方伸向海洋，像根長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的彎曲的手指，好像在召喚人們?cè)竭^海洋到馬薩諸塞州來，那就是科德角半島。因這里盛產(chǎn)鱈魚而起的名字[3]，當(dāng)?shù)睾Ｓ蝼L魚資源豐富，人們捕撈大量的鱈魚，曬干后運(yùn)往各地。
The finger of Cape Cod has beckoned to people of other lands than England. People who speak strange languages have come to New England to work in factories and mills, so that now almost one quarter of the people in New England are not from England; they are not Yankees.
除了英國人以外，科德角還召喚其他地方的人。說著各種奇怪語言的人來到了新英格蘭的工廠和作坊工作，因此現(xiàn)在幾乎有四分之一的新英格蘭人并不是來自英格蘭，他們不是揚(yáng)基人，也就是說不能算是“新英格蘭人”。

[1] 英文“mill”一詞有“工廠”和“磨坊”兩個(gè)意思——譯者注。
[2] “格林山”在英語中是“Green Mountains”，字面意思是“綠色的山”——譯者注。
[3] “科德”的英文是“cod”，這詞有“鱈魚”的意思——譯者注。