Build up vocabulary from the news

yearshappy

原帖由 hedgehog 于 27-10-2012 19:35 发表

                               
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有紧急任务要在11月2日完成。所以最近看新闻要放一放了。

Alright.
Now I can try to catch up.

[ 本帖最后由 yearshappy 于 3-12-2012 15:39 编辑 ]

hedgehog

venal= prepared to do dishonest or immoral things in return for money. 腐败的，贪赃枉法的，见利忘义的
belie=证明（或显示）...为虚假的； 与...抵触，违背。to show that sth cannot be true or correct.

悉尼晨报：The new China looks too much like the old one

The venal actions of the party elite belie all the talk of modernisation.

ON THE cusp of next month's 18th congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the carefully crafted theme song trumpeting reform and modernisation has been suddenly replaced by the old anthem of corruption and venality.


http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/po ... 20121029-28dqk.html

[ 本帖最后由 hedgehog 于 4-11-2012 10:00 编辑 ]

hedgehog

Presidential debate: The trick is to be pugnacious and personable

pugnacious=having a strong desire to argue or fight with other people. 爱争执的；好斗的；爱滋事的 pugnacity

personable=(of a person)attractive to other people because of having a pleasant appeearance and character. 英俊潇洒，讨人喜欢

http://www.latimes.com/news/opin ... ial-debate-20121015,0,7340043.story

hedgehog

short shrift  =1. rapid and unsympathetic dismissal, curt treatment; 淡漠的对待，草率的处理；2. little time between condemnation and execution or punishment.（临刑前给死刑犯的）短暂忏悔时间

The latest sign of a Chinese invasion in Hollywood is a string of performances so short, you'll miss them if you blink.

Chinese actresses, many of whom are superstars in China, are appearing in big-budget Hollywood movies, but in roles that are more decorative than groundbreaking.

The driving force behind these Chinese beauties' Hollywood debut is Chinese capital, which has found its way into productions of international box-office clout.

http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/ ... ontent_15793105.htm

hedgehog

Now comes the big question: Is social networking as beneficial as netizens claim it to be, or is it actually harmful? Is it a boon, or a bane?

bane = a cause of great distress or annoyance 祸因，祸根, 造成困惑或不快的事物

boon = something that is very helpful and makes life easier for you. 非常有用的东西；益处

http://opinion.inquirer.net/39714/boon-or-bane-2

半颗牙齿

mark....... .....

hedgehog

AS far as the Australian public is concerned there are now 39 very good reasons for bringing the troops home from Afghanistan post-haste（with great speed or immediacy, 尽快，从速）.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news ... rf7jo-1226501044402

hedgehog

ROBOTS in rapidly ageing Japan are moving from the realm of science fiction and technology fairs to practical use, helping the elderly with rehabilitation and performing daily tasks.

Robots are also tightly woven into the cultural fabric in Japan, regularly cropping up in manga（日本漫画） and anime（日本动画片，常以科幻为主题） going back to the birth of Astro Boy in 1952. Japanese engineers who grew up in this cultural milieu will keep pumping out new designs, but in the present economic slump their ideas will have to meet far tighter standards for adoption and profitability than in the past.

milieu = the social environment that you live or work in 社会环境；社会背景

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/ ... rg6so-1226494698495

[ 本帖最后由 hedgehog 于 6-11-2012 07:40 编辑 ]

hedgehog

Australia's bid for Security Council is good for democracy
......
Unless these governments can effectively address poverty, their legitimacy will be undermined and political instability will be associated with the rise of extreme views and intolerance. It is a truism that democracies do not go to war with each other, and as Harvard Professor Amartya Sen has highlighted, democracies do not have famines.

truism = 不言而喻的道理；自明之理；老生常谈 a statement that is clearly true and does not therefore add anything interesting or important to a discussion

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/po ... 20121016-27ozt.html

hedgehog

"It's a patent that should never have been issued, because it's anticipated by all sorts of prior art, but you have a right to that patent, and you are going to declaim loudly to the world that these are your patents, you own this space, and you are going to bully anybody and everybody into submission."

declaim = 慷慨陈词；大声疾呼；高声朗诵， to say sth loudly; to speak dramatically, as if you were acting in a theatre.

http://management.fortune.cnn.co ... i-vac-patent-fight/

hedgehog

scurrilous = very rude and insulting, and intended to damage sb's reputation. 恶意诽谤的；用污言秽语谩骂的；辱骂的

In a profound irony, the list of people responsible for the Newsnight debacle reads like a roll-call of Leveson cheerleaders, of self-styled experts and hacks who have spent the past year calling for the punishment of scurrilous journalism and the celebration of their own, apparently serious journalism.

In short, the BIJ, producer of perhaps the most fact-free, scurrilous and sensationalist reports in British journalism this year, is overseen and backed by the very people who want the tabloids punished by Leveson for being fact-free, scurrilous and sensationalist.

The lesson of the BBC scandal is that we should not let one group of moralistic journalists sit in judgement on another, as has been happening in Britain over the past year. Instead, give full freedom to publish to all of them, broadsheet and tabloid, and let the public make up their minds about what is serious and what is scurrilous.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/ ... rg99o-1226519094233

hedgehog

bead = a small knob forming the foresight of a gun. （枪的）圆形准星

例句：He has a bead on everyting that goes on here. 他严密注意这这儿发生的一切。


一个偷车贼偷了中餐馆的送餐车之后，开着这辆车给顾客送饭。在送完一客之后，得到报告的警察在下一个顾客那里抓到了他

It was then, the paper reports, cops were able to get a bead on the car thief delivering food.

http://www.inquisitr.com/404487/ ... ps-change-cops-say/

atoz

好帖，谢谢楼主

hedgehog

The penny dropped = When the penny drops, someone belatedly understands something that everyone else has long since understood. 终于明白了别人早已明白的事

It was only when we were able to use an online image search to prove that the pictures he thought were of his beloved "Crystal" were ­actually of a porn star calling herself Kayla Banks - who had nothing to do with the scam - that the penny dropped at last.

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/invest ... ing-con-has-co.html

[ 本帖最后由 hedgehog 于 26-11-2012 08:18 编辑 ]

hedgehog

turpitude = very immoral behaviour, wicked and unacceptable. 卑鄙行为，恶劣行为，堕落，邪恶

He faces a number of charges including, corruption, moral turpitude and attempts to protect his wife Gu Kailai from investigations into the murder of British Businessman Neil Heywood in November last year.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/int ... /article4037496.ece

hedgehog

insouciant = an insouciant action or quality shows a lack of concern; 漠不关心的；漫不经心的；无忧无虑的

He has gone from a Cold Warrior to a superhero in a tuxedo, from a minimalist assassin to a gadget guru and back again. His relationships with women have gotten shallower, then deeper, then complicated. His attitude has bounced from insouciant to sarcastic to surly.

He's still Bond. But he's not the Bond he used to be.

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ ... ll_50_years_of.html

hedgehog

non sequitur = a statement that does not seem to follow what has just been said in any natural or logical way. 不根据前提的推理；不合逻辑的推论； 前后不连贯（毫无逻辑联系）的陈述（或回答）

Maybe it would have helped had I prefaced it with non-sequiturs and deep-sounding-but-actually-totally-meaningless phrases the way you do in the script that was apparently written using the tried-and-true kidnapper-ransom-note technique of clipping random words out of a magazine.

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-a ... oofy-chanel-ad-ripe

hedgehog

putative = believed to be the person or thing mentioned. 推定的；认定的；公认的 Syn: presumed.
The putative father of this child. 这孩子的推定的父亲。

There are fresh hopes that putative President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang will lead China in a different direction.

The first is commonly known as the ‘princelings’, so called because they are from the families of veteran revolutionaries and high-ranking officials. Notable princelings include putative president Xi Jinping, who is known to be a protégé of former president Jiang Zemin.

Putative premier Li Keqiang has recently mentioned the importance of supporting the private domestic sector as one of his reform priorities.


http://www.businessspectator.com ... ocument&src=rss

hedgehog

I just finished reading Stephen King's novel "11.22.63". This is a gripping tale of a secondary school teacher from 2010 who travels back in time to 1958 and waits till 1963 to save President Kennedy from assacination.

If you enjoy reading thrillers, this is a good book to pass time with. And you will encounter many of the words introduced in this thread and the other thread about learning new words through pictures.

If anybody who follows this thread is an avid reader, I'd like to hear from you. Maybe we can start a book lovers' club or something if there are enough number of like-minded people.

yearshappy

原帖由 hedgehog 于 4-12-2012 10:14 发表

                               
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I just finished reading Stephen King's novel "11.22.63". This is a gripping tale of a secondary school teacher from 2010 who travels back in time to 1958 and waits till 1963 to save President Kennedy  ...

非常棒的想法，成员一定会受益良多
如果你愿意，可另开帖谈关于读书社的成立问题，我会把帖子挂上面