英语一阅读翻译2010

2010年

Text1

Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage.

过去的25年，在英文报纸发生的所有变化中，或许最具有深远意义的变化就是这些报纸的文艺报道范围不断缩小，严肃性不断减弱，这是个无法逆转的必然趋势。

It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.

对于年龄低于40岁的普通读者来讲，让他们想象一下当年可以在许多大城市报纸上读到精品的文艺评论简直几乎是天方夜谭。然而，在20世纪出版的最重要的文艺批评集子里，人们读到的大部分评论文章都是从报纸上收集而来。现在，如果读到这些集子，人们肯定会惊诧，当年这般博学多才的精神食粮竟然被认为适合刊载在面向大众发行的报纸版面上。

We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War Ⅱ, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the publications in which it appeared. In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviewers who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. “So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in journalism,” Newman wrote, “that I am tempted to define ‘journalism’ as ‘a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are’ .”

从20世纪早期到二战以前，报纸纸张极为便宜，由于格调高雅的文艺批评被认为可以装点刊载它的报纸，英国报纸对投来的评论文章来者不拒，对它们涉及什么主题无人在意。但我们现今的报纸离此已相去更远。在那些遥远的年代，人们理所当然地认为主流报纸的评论家们都会不遗余力地把他们评论的事实说清楚。他们写作是严肃的，甚至以文笔轻松风趣著称的George Bernard Shaw和Ernest Newman也知道自己在做什么，这一点足以让人信任。这些批评家们相信报刊评论是一门职业，并且对于他们的文章能够在报纸上发表感到很自豪。“鉴于几乎没有作家能拥有足够的思想或足够的文学天赋以保证他们在写批评时能不畏艰难，时刻保持乐观”，Newman曾写道，“我倾向于把‘报刊评论’定义为“被某些作家所使用的一个轻蔑之词。对真正的作家而言，他们根本就没有学问”。

Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. During his lifetime, though,

he was also one of England’s foremost classical-music critics, and a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography (1947) became a best-seller. He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored. Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists.

可令人悲哀的是，这样的批评家们现在却被人们所遗忘。从1917年开始一直到1975年去世不久前还在为曼彻斯特《卫报》写文章的Neville Cardus，如今仅仅作为一个撰写关于板球比赛文章的作家被人们所知。然而，在他的一生中，他也是英国首屈一指的古典音乐评论家之一。他也是一位深受读者青睐的文体家，所以1947年他的《自传》一书就成为热销读物。1967年他被授予爵士称号，也是第一位获此殊荣的音乐评论家。然而，他的书现在只有一本可以在市面上买到。他大量的音乐批评，除了专门研究音乐评论的人以外，已鲜为人知。

Is there any chance that Cardus’s criticism will enjoy a revival? The prospect seems remote. Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.

Cardus的评论还有可能享有在他死后重新流行吗？前景似乎渺茫。在他去世以前很久，新闻业的品味早就已经改变了，而且他所擅长的措词华丽的维多利亚爱德华时期的散文风格对后现代的读者一点都没用。何况，由业余爱好者作音乐批评的传统早已经成为昨日黄花了。

Text 2

Over the past decade, thousands of patents have seen granted for what are called business methods. received one for its “one-click” online payment system. Merrill Lynch got legal protection for an asset allocation strategy. One inventor patented a technique for lying a box.

在过去的十年中，成千上万的商业方法被授予了专利权。亚马逊网站获得的专利是在线“单击”付费系统。美林公司的资产分配方案得到了法律保护。有个发明者的提箱技巧也获得了专利。

Now the nation’s top patent court appears completely-property lawyers abuzz the U.S. court of Appeals for the federal circuit said it would use a particular case to conduct a broad review of business-method patents. In the Bilski, as the case is known, is a “very big deal”, says Dennis’D Crouch of the University of Missouri School of law. It “has the potential to eliminate an entire class of patents.”

现在，该国最高专利法院似乎完全准备好要缩减商业方法专利，因为商业方法专利自从十年前第一次批准授予以来一直有争议。在一项使得知识产权律师们议论纷纷的提议中，美国联邦巡回上诉法院声称它将利用某个具体案件来对商业方法专利进行广泛的复审。密苏里大学法学院Dennis D. Crouch说，“正如人们所知道的那样，Bilski案例是一件非常大的事情”它可能将消除整个专利类别”。

Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face, because it was the federal circuit itself that introduced such patents with is 1998 decision in the so-called state Street Bank case, approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets. That ruling produced an explosion in business-method patent filings, initially by emerging internet companies trying to stake out exclusive pinhts to specific types