Jack: C’mon Leo, stay with her. Don’t die. Think warm thoughts…
Rose: Watching Titanic?
Jack: Yep.
Rose: Again?
Jack: You know it!
Rose: ①Don’t you ever feel stuck in a rut watching the same movie over and over again?
Jack: Not in the slightest. ②I’d feast my eyes on Kate Winslet any day of the week.
Rose: Is she the only reason you love the film so much?
Jack: She’s one of the reasons, but not the only one, and certainly not the main one.
Rose: Oh yeah? What do you love the most about it?
Jack: The 1)pageantry, the 2)grandiose feeling you get inside the ship, the sheer amount of people it took to keep it afloat, and the fact that with all that manpower the boat still went down.
Rose: Yeah, ③The Titanic was absolutely huge, hence the name, and it’s obviously the most famous shipwreck ever, but it wasn’t the only massive ship to bite the 3)proverbial dust.
Jack: Oh?
Rose: Just flip back a few pages in the 4)almanac, and you’ll find that plenty of other vessels, throughout history, have suffered a similar fate.
Jack: Is that so? ④Would you care to enlighten me?
Rose: As a matter of fact, I would love to.
Jack: Alright. ⑤Let me have it!
Rose: You want the whole list?
Jack: There’s a list? I didn’t realize there were so many.
Rose: Well, the Korean ship, Sewol, 5)capsized off the coast of Jindo Island a few weeks ago…
Jack: Oh yeah, I heard about that. It’s such a shame. Those poor kids…
Rose: I know. What a tragedy. But in terms of 6)casualties, go back to 1994 and you’ll see that over 800 people lost their lives when the Estonia sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Jack: Woah! That wasn’t all that long ago. And that’s almost four times the 7)fatalities from the recent Korean shipwreck.
Rose: But it’s still roughly half of the 1,500+ people who died aboard the Titanic in 1912. Jack: That’s right. So, what other ships couldn’t stand the test of time?
Rose: The British Naval ship, HMS Wallace, was given as a gift to the Royal Australian Navy in 1933, at which point the name was changed to the HMAS Vampire.
Jack: What happened to The Vampire? Did“The Werewolf” take a big ol’ bite out of it?
Rose: Hardy har har. It was actually destroyed by Japanese 8)aircrafts in 1942,⑥so you shouldn’t make light of it because it’s not a laughing matter.
Jack: Sorry, Rose. I should really think before I speak sometimes. I was just trying to lighten the mood a bit. All this talk of shipwrecks is awful dark, like I would imagine the bottom of the ocean must be.
Rose: Dark indeed. Hopefully, those responsible for designing the ships of today can learn from the tragic mistakes of our past.
Smart Sentences
① Don’t you ever feel stuck in a rut watching the same movie over and over again? 反反復(fù)復(fù)看同一部電影你不覺得太悶了嗎?
stuck in a rut: do the same thing all the time and become bored(因一成不變而煩悶)。例如:
Only being on the job for two months, Susie felt stuck in a rut having to restock the shelves all day long, so she quit.
蘇茜才干了兩個月,就覺得每天往貨架上擺商品太悶了,于是她辭職了。
② I’d feast my eyes on Kate Winslet any day of the week. (這樣)我隨時都可以盡情欣賞凱特·溫斯萊特的風(fēng)姿。
feast sb.’s eyes on sb./sth.: look at sb. or sth. with pleasure(看……以飽眼福,盡情地欣賞某人/某物)。例如:
We spent a whole day feasting our eyes on the masterpieces in the museum.
我們一整天都在博物館里盡情地欣賞著那些杰作。
③ The Titanic was absolutely huge, hence the name, and it’s obviously the most famous shipwreck ever, but it wasn’t the only massive ship to bite the proverbial dust. “泰坦尼克”號因為非常巨大而得名,而且顯然它遭遇了史上最聞名的船難,但它并非唯一一敗涂地的巨輪。
hence the name: used to indicate the reason of the name, same as “that’s where the name comes from”(因此有……之名,等同于“that’s where the name comes from”)。例如:
Bloody Mary was extremely cruel and unmerciful, hence the name.
血腥瑪莉非常殘忍與無情,她也因此得名。
bite the dust: break; fail; give out(失靈,失敗)。例如:My old car finally bit the dust after 15 years.
我的老車在跑了15年后終于玩完了。
④ Would you care to enlighten me? 你愿意給我具體講講嗎?
Would you care to do sth.?: a polite expression used to ask others to do sth.(請求他人做某事的禮貌用語)。例如:
Would you care to join us for dinner on Thanksgiving?
您愿意在感恩節(jié)與我們一起共進晚餐嗎?
⑤ Let me have it! 我洗耳恭聽!
Let me have it: used to indicate the readiness to know about sth., same as “l(fā)et me know about it”(用以表明已經(jīng)為了解某事做好準(zhǔn)備,等同于“l(fā)et me know about it”)。例如:
—About the accident, your new car is in pretty bad shape...
這次事故嘛,你新車的情況不怎么好……
—Okay, let me have it.
行了,告訴我吧。
⑥ So you shouldn’t make light of it because it’s not a laughing matter. 所以你不該輕視它,因為那并不是好笑的事。
make light of sth.: treat sth. as if it were unimportant(不在乎,輕視)。例如:
Please don’t make light of his continual coughing. It’s quite serious.
別小看他持續(xù)的咳嗽,問題挺嚴(yán)重的。