2013浙江高考英语 阅读A篇译文

A
No one knows for sure when advertising
first started.
没有人确信地知道广告何时开始的。

It is possible that it grew out of the discovery that some people did certain kinds of work better than others did them. 新出来的发现，即一些人做了一定类型的工作并且比起其他人做它们要来的好是很有可能的。

That led to the concept of specialization, which means that people would specialize, or focus, on doing one specific job. 那就关于专业性的概念，它意味着人们将变得专业，集中做一件特殊具体的工作。

Let’s take a man we’ll call Mr.Fielder,
for example.
拿一个我们叫他为费得先生的男人举例。

He did everything connected with farming. 他所做的一切事都关于务农。

He planted seeds, tended the fields, and harvested and sold his crops. 他种植种子，照料田地，之后丰收，再是卖掉他的庄稼。

At the same time, he did many other jobs on the farm. 与此同时，他在农场里还干着许多其他的工作。

However, he didn’t make the bricks for his house, grind the wheat for his flour, or cut his trees into boards. 然而，他没有用砖头来砌他的家，碾磨小麦做他的面粉，或者砍伐他的树变成木板。

He also did not make the plows(犁), the work boots, or any of the other hundreds of things a farm needs. 他同样没有制造梨，工作的靴子，或者其他几百样中任何一个农场所需的东西。

Instead, he got them from people who specialized in doing each of those things. 相反的，他从别人，那些专门做这些东西的人上得到了。

Suppose there was another man we shall call Mr.Plowright. 假设有另外一个男人，我们叫他为梨瑞特先生。

Using what he knew about farming and working with iron, Mr.Plowright invented a plow that made farming easier. 利用他知道关于务农以及铁的知识，梨瑞特先生发明了一个梨，它可以使农活变得更简单。

Mr.Plowright did not really like farming himself and wanted to specialize in making really good plows. 梨瑞特先生自身并不喜欢农活，他想要专业生产好的梨。

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Perhaps, he thought, other farmers will trade what they grow for one of my plows. 也许，他认为，其他的农民将买卖用我所造的梨所生长出来的作物。

How did Mr.Plowright let people know what he was doing? Why, he advertised, of course. 梨瑞特先生如何让别人知道他正在做什么呢？为什么，他用了广告，毫无疑问。

First he opened a shop and then he put up a 起先他开来家商店，接着他在店外摆了一个
sign outside the shop to attract customers. 标志来吸引顾客。

That sign may have been no more than a plow carved into a piece of wood and a simple arrow pointing to the shop door. 这个标志就无非是一个刻在木头上的一个梨，和一个指向店门的箭头。

It was probably all the information people needed to find Mr.Plowright and his really good plows. 这大概就是人们可以用来找梨瑞特先生和他真的好梨的全部信息。

Many historians believe that the first outdoor signs were used about five thousand years ago. 很多历史学家相信，第一个室外的标志被用是在5千年以前。

Even before most people could read, they understood such signs. 那之前绝大多数的人能够读懂，他们理解这些标志。

Shopkeepers would carve into stone, clay, or wood symbols for the products they had for sale. 店主将把他们要出售的产品刻在石头，黏土或木头上。

A medium, in advertising talk, is the way you communicate your message. 用广告术语讲，媒体，是一种你能用来交流你的信息的方式。

You might say that the first medium used in advertising was signs with symbols. 你可能会说，第一个是广告中使用的媒体就是带有符号的标志。

The second medium was audio, or sound, although that term is not used exactly in the way we use it today. 第二个媒体就是音频，或是声音，尽管那个术语并非确切的像我们今天使用它的那样。

Originally, just the human voice and maybe some kind of simple instrument, such as a bell, were used to get people’s attention. 最初，只有人类的嗓音，和也许某些简单的乐器，比如说一个铃铛，被用于去吸引人们的注意力。

A crier, in the historical sense, is not someone who weeps easily.
一个哭泣的人，在历史的角度上看，并非是一个在哭的人这么简单。

It is someone, probably a man, with a voice loud enough to be heard over the other noises of a city.
它是这么一个人，也许是个男人，有着高高的嗓音，如此响以至于可以盖过另一个城市的噪音。

In ancient Egypt, shopkeepers might hire such a person to spread the news about their products.
在古埃及，店主可能会雇佣这么一个人去传播关于他们产品的消息。

Often this primitive form of advertising involved a newly arrived ship loaded with goods.
通常，首要的广告形式包括一艘装满商品的新船。

Perhaps the crier described the goods, explained where they came from, and praised
也许，这个叫唤者描述着个商品，它们从哪来，夸赞它们的质量。

their quality.
His job was, in other words, not too different from a TV or radio commercial in today’s world.
他的工作，换句话说，不是那么与如今世界上电视或收音机商业广告般不同。