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日前，被称为“丛林老虎”的高尔夫球霸主泰格·伍兹，在名人赛上取得并列第3名的成绩后，因用“笨蛋”来形容自己最后一轮时的推杆而遭致媒体谴责，伍兹最后不得不公开道歉。您可能会问，一句“笨蛋”，至于吗？ 请看外电相关报道：The American who is the world No 1 player, who tied for third place three strokes behind winner Phil Mickelson, was criticized for using the term "spaz " to describe his poor putting in the final round. When asked about his play on the last day at Augusta, Woods replied: "I putted atrociously today. Once I got on the greens, I was a spaz." 报道中的spaz在美国俚语中指“笨家伙”，其近义词为“clumsy；inept”（笨拙的；无能的），因此，对于美国人来说，spaz并没有侮辱意。 但在英国，spaz是一种对“痉挛的瘫痪病人和大脑性麻痹病患者”的侮辱性称呼。用英国残疾人组织的话来说：“虽然在美国，spaz这个词没有冒犯别人的意思，但在英国，伍兹的言论伤害了他的球迷们，不管这些球迷是健康人还是残疾人。” 看来，我们在使用英语词汇时，还真得注意英美两国的差异。请看一个例句： Dave ran around screaming with his tongue hanging out like a spaz. 这句话摘自一本英国小说， spaz在这里意味“a person that acts insane or mentally retarded”，可翻译为：戴夫伸着舌头边跑边叫，像个疯子一样。 |
