Lesson Eight Science Has Spoiled My Supper Words and Expressions
Text Explanation
1Science, to my mind, is applied hoesty…
Science is something in which honesty is put into practice. There is no room for cheating in science.
2…I feel the way a man would if his favorite uncle had taken to drink.
You have mixed feelings if your favorite uncle has got into the bad habit of drinking alcoholic liquor. On the one hand, you feel resentful for his doing so, but on the other hand, as he is your beloved uncle, you may feel bitterly disappointed and sorry for him. This is exactly how the author feels about error committed in the name of science.
3America can set as good a table as any nation in the world.
America can provide food as good as that provided by any nation in the world.
4… it is sad to go back eating with my friends - even the alleged "good cooks" among them.
The food prepared by his friends is tasteless. This is true of the food prepared by those friends who are said to be god cooks.
So it is sad to go back to eating with them. Here "eating" is a verbal noun, expresses a frequent action.
5The latter were sharp but not too sharp.
Cheese can be made to be pungent, less pungent or light in taste. Usually the world "sharp" or "medium" or "light" is printed on the package of the cheese for the convenience of the customers.
6…but no one comes within miles of the old kinds - for flavor.
…they are all inferior in flavor to the old kinds of cheeses.
但是在味道上没有一种不和原来的奶酪差上十万八千里。
After a sound sleep last night, he feels miles better today. (much better)
7 A grocer used to be very fussy about his cheese.
A grocer used to be very particular about what cheese and how much cheese he bought to sell in his shop.
be fussy about: showing close attention to detail 为琐事担心
Our teacher is too fussy about our clothes.
8…who knew precisely what their patrons wanted.
…who knew exactly what kind of cheeses their regular customers wanted.
9The old-fashioned cheeses didn't ship well enough.
The old-fashioned cheeses could not be well transported, for their quality was likely to decline in transit.
10…so long as they can sell most persons anyhow.
…so long as they can sell their foodstuff to most persons anyhow.
11"Scientific samplings" got in its statistically nasty work.
"Scientific samplings" got its statistically nasty work in. This means "Scientific samplings" used its disgusting statistics to influence food production.
“科学抽样”的讨厌的统计工作插了进来。
12…but nobody is very violently put off.
… but nobody dislikes it so much as not to buy it.
但也没有人会厌恶到不去买的地步。
I quite like working for the director, but his bad temper puts me off.
13The result is that a "reason" has been found for turning out zillions of packages of something that will "do" for nearly all and isn't even imagined to be superlatively good by a single soul.
The result is that a "reason" has been found for producing a great many packages of something that will be tolerated by people in general but is not thought to be very good to anybody.
其结果是，找到了一个“理由”，去生产无数包某种东西，这些可以被几乎所有的人“凑合着用”，但
即使在想象时也不会有一个人认为它们是特别好的好东西。
14Economics entered.
Economics came to play its role, to influence food production.
15It is possible to turn out in quantity a bland, impersonal, practically imperishable substance more or less resembling, say cheese - at lower cost than cheese.
These carefully chosen words fully express the author's contempt for today's cheese. He wouldn't call it cheese, but a substance resembling cheese. It is not sharp enough but very mild in flavor, almost tasteless; it is standardized with no individual character;
and it is hard and never goes bad instead of being crumbly.
用低于生产奶酪的成本生产出大量淡而无味的，没有特色的，几乎是永远不会腐烂的，或多或少像譬如说
是奶酪的物质，这是可能的。
16Chain groceries shut out independent stores and "standardization" became a principal means of cutting cost.
Defeated by chain groceries in competition, the independent stores had to close down.
同一公司开设的连锁食品杂货店挤垮了独立经营的商店，“标准化”变成了降低成本的主要手段。
Shut out: keep out, exclude, block 把……关在门外，排除，遮住
These buildings, when completed, will shut out our view of the sea.
17There are American duplications of most of the celebrated European cheeses, mass-produced and cheaper by far than the imports.
Imitations of most of the famous European cheeses are made in large quantities. They are much cheaper than the imported European cheeses.
18I knew that vegetables cannot be overcooked and remain even edible, in the best sense.
I knew that when vegetables are overcooked they cannot remain fit to be eaten with full flavor.
我知道蔬菜煮过了头就不可能吃起来还有滋有味。
19Our vegetables, however, comes to us through a long chain of command.
Vegetables pass through many hands in the network of distribution before reaching the customers.
20if you pureed them blindfolded
if you have your eyes covered and taste the thick soup made of boiled-and-sieved vegetable pulp.
21Agronomists and the like have taken to breeding all sorts of vegetables and fruits
Agronomists and people like them are engaged in cultivating all sorts of vegetables and fruits.
农学家之类的人物搞起了各种蔬菜和水果的培育。
22…the things they've tampered with!
to tamper with something means to handle something ignorantly or foolishly so as to damage or make things worse.
23The farmers can then harvest his peas and thresh them and be done with them.
Once the farmers harvest and thresh the peas, they have finished everything about them, that is, they have nothing else to do about them.
24… you can't tell them from tender string.
…when you eat this kind of string beans, you cannot distinguish them from soft thin rope. They taste just like soft string.
25…that have less flavor than the water off last week's leeks.
This is an exaggeration of how tasteless onions are. Last week's leeks are no longer fresh but wilted. The water squeenzed out of it tastes terrible.
还不如放了一个星期的韭菜水味道足。
26The food … looks like famous paintings of still life.
The food … looks beautiful like a work of art but is not meant for eating.
27It is, however, "deep-freezing" that has really rung down the curtain on American cookery.
It is, however, "deep-freezing" that has completely spoiled or has marked the end of American cookery.
28I have yet to taste a deep-frozen victual that measures up, in flavor, to the fresh, unfrosted original.
I haven't tasted a kind of deep frozen food that reaches the standard, in flavor, of the fresh, un frozen food.
29Vegetables with crisp and cracking texture emerge as mush, slippery and stringy as hair nets simmered in Vaseline.
质地爽脆的蔬菜出来后就像在凡士林中炖过的发网一样黏黏糊糊的，滑溜溜的，筋筋拉拉的。
30The essential oils that make peas peas - and cabbage cabbage - must undergo fission and fusion in freezers.
Peas have the taste of peas because of its essential oils. This is also the case with cabbage. These essential oils must have changed into something entirely different through violent chemical process.
使豌豆成其为豌豆，卷心菜成其为卷心菜的独特的精油在低温冷藏箱中必定经过分裂与聚变，总之是消失了。
31We are suckling ourselves on machine-made mediocrity.
We are nourishing ourselves with machine-processed food of second-rate quality.
我们靠机器制造出来的平庸的东西哺育自己。
32…the people of U.S.A. are well on the way to becoming faceless mob of mediocrities.
…the American people have started to become a disorderly crowd of people who have ordinary quality and lack
distinguished personality.
33And if we apply to other attributes the criteria we apply these days to appetite, that is what would happen!
The criteria we apply to our appetite are nice-looking, standardization, lack of individuality, et. If we apply these criteria to other qualities characteristic of our people as a nation, we would all become an undifferentiated mob of mediocrities.
34We wouldn't be interested in beautiful women- just a good paint job.
Women painted in pictures just look beautiful, but they are unreal and have no thought. If beautiful women were just like those pictures, we wouldn't be interested in them. The author implies that we are interested in beautiful women also because of their inner beauty.
35…for a family that doesn't feel it amounts to much anyhow.
… for a family that doesn't feel it is a serious matter to have something not very good to eat.