diction原文

Private Cars
With the increase in the general standard of living, some ordinary Chinese families begin to afford a car. Yet opinions of the development of a private car vary from person to person.
It gives a much greater degree of comfort and mobility. The owner of a car is no longer forced to reply on public transport, and hence no irritation caused by waiting for buses or taxis. However, others strongly object to developing private cars. They maintain that as more and more cars are produced and run in the street, a large volume of poisonous gas will be given off, polluting the atmosphere and causing actual harm to the health of people.
Whether private cars should be developed in Chicago is a difficult question to answer, yet the desire for the comfort and independence a private car can bring will not be eliminated.
Display of Goods
Are supermarkets designed to persuade us to buy more?
Fresh fruit and vegetables are displayed near supermarket entrances. This gives the impression that only healthy food is sold in the shop. Basic foods that everyone buys, like sugar and tea, are not put near each other. They are kept in different aisles so customers are taken past other attractive foods before they find what they want. In this way, shoppers are encouraged to buy products that they do not really need.
Sweets are often placed at children’s eye level at the checkout. While parents are waiting to pay, children reach for the sweets and put them in the trolley.
More is bought from a fifteen-foot display of one type of product than from a ten-foot one. Customers also buy more when shelves are full than when they are half empty. They do not like to buy from shelves with few products on them because they feel there is something wrong with those products that are there.
Useful Words and Expressions:
1. aisle 走廊，过道
2. trolley 手推车
3. checkout 收款台
Plastic
We use plastic wrap to protect our foods. We put our garbage in plastic bags or plastic cans. We sit on plastic chairs, play with plastic toys, drink from plastic cups, and wash our hair with shampoo from plastic bottles!
Plastic does not grow in nature. It is made by mixing certain things together. We call it a produced or manufactured material. Plastic was first made in the 1860s from plants, such as wood and cotton. That plastic was soft and burned easily.
The first modern plastics were made in the 1930s. Most clear plastic starts out as thick, black oil. That plastic coating inside a pan begins as natural gas.
Over the years, hundreds of different plastics have been developed. Some are hard and strong. Some are soft and bendable. Some are clear. Some are many-colored. There is a plastic for almost
every need. Scientists continue to experiment with plastics. They hope to find even ways to use them!
The United Nations
In 1945, representatives of 50 nations met to plan this organization. It was called the United Nations. After the war, many more nations joined.
There are two major parts of the United Nations. One is called the General Assembly. In the General Assembly, every member nation is represented and has an equal vote.
The second part is called the Security Council. It has representatives of just 15 nations. Five nations are permanent members: the United States, Russia, France, Britain, and China. The 10 other members are elected every two years by the General Assembly.
The major job of the Security Council is to keep peace in the world. If necessary, it can send troops from member nations to try to stop little wars before they turn into big ones.
It is hard to get the nations of the Security Council to agree on when this is necessary. But they did vote to try to stop wars.
Useful Words and Expressions:
1. representative 代表
2. General Assembly 联合国大会
3. permanent 永久的，持久的
4. Security Council 联合国安全理事会
Living Space
How much living space does a person need? What happens when his space needs are not met? Scientists are doing experiments on rats to try to determine the effects of overcrowded conditions on man. Recent studies have shown that the behavior of rats is greatly affected by space. If rats have enough living space, they eat well, sleep well and produce their young well. But if their living conditions become too crowded, their behavior and even their health change obviously. They can not sleep and eat well, and signs of fear and worry become clear. The more crowded they are, and more they tend to bite each other and even kill each other. Thus, for rats, populations and violence are directly related. Is this a natural law for human society as well? Is enough space not only satisfactory, but necessary for human survival? These are interesting questions.
A Change in Women’s Life
The important change in women’s life-pattern has only recently begun to have its full effect on
women’s economic position. Even a f ew years ago most girls left school at the first opportunity, and most of them took a full-time job. However, when they married, they usually left work at once and never returned to it. Today the school-leaving age is sixteen, many girls stay at school after that age, and though women tend to marry younger, more married women stay at work at least until shortly before their first child is born. Very many more afterwards return to full-time or part-time work. Such changes have led to a new relationship in marriage, with the husband accepting a greater share of the duties and satisfactions of family life and with both husband and wife sharing more equally in providing the money, and running the home, according to the abilities and interests of each of them.
Useful Words and Expressions:
1. life-pattern生活方式
2. share
Town and Country Life in England
There is a big difference between town life and country life in England. In the country, everybody knows everybody else. They know what time you get up, what time you go to bed and what you have for dinner. If you want help, you will always get it and you will be glad to help others.
In a large town like London, however, it can sometimes happen that you have never seen your next door neighbor and you do not know his name or anything about him. People in London are often very lonely. This is because people go to different places in the evenings and at weekends. If you walk through the streets in the centre of London on Sunday, it is like a town without people. One is sorry for old people living on their own. They could die in their homes and would not be discovered for weeks or even months.
Time
Time is tangible. One can gain time, spend time, waste time, save time, or even kill time. Common questions in American E nglish reveal this concrete quality as though time were a possession. “Do you have any time?”, “Can you get some time for this?”, “How much free time do you have?” The treatment of time as a possession influences the way that time is carefully divided.
Generally, Americans are taught to do one thing at a time and may be uncomfortable when an activity is interrupted. In businesses, the careful scheduling of time and the separation of activities are common practices. Appointment calendars are printed with 15-,30-, and 60-minute time slots. The idea that “there is a time and place for everything” extends to American social life. Visitors who drop by without prior notice may interrupt their host’s personal time. Thus, calling friends on the telephone before visi ting them is generally preferred to visitors’ dropping by.
Useful words and expressions:
1. tangible 切实的
2. kill time 消磨时间
3. reveal 显示，揭示
4. scheduling 行程安排
5. slot 缝隙
6. drop by 随便访问
7. preferred 首选的
A Place of Our Own
We are all usually very careful when we buy something for the house. Why? Because we have to live with it for a long time. We paint a room to make it brighter, so we choose the colors carefully.
We buy new curtains in order to match the newly decorated room, so they must be the right color. We move the furniture round so as to make more space—or we buy new furniture—and so on. It is an endless business.
Rich or poor, we take time to furnish a room. Perhaps some people buy furniture in order to impress their friends. But most of us just want to enjoy our surroundings. We want to live as comfortably as we can afford to. We spend a large part of our lives at home. We want to make a small corner in the world which we can recognize as our own.。