学习笔记之看《绝望主妇》学英语

    1. Mrs. Huber:"Apparently,Edie is having a gentleman friendoverfor dinner and I think she plans on entertaining into

　　the wee hours. If you knowwhat I mean."

　　having a gentlemanfriend over fordinner: 请一位男性朋友过来吃晚饭。

　　这里"over"的用法在本集前面已经介绍过了，当时Susan说"I had that woman overforbrunch."(我请那个女人来家里吃过早午餐。)

　　the wee (small)hours: the early hours of the morning, just after12 o'clock at night

　　备注："thewee smallhours"常用于美式英语中，英式英语中常用"the smallhours"。表示“到深夜，到凌晨”，常跟介词"into"连用。

　　例：

　　The party continued into the weesmallhours。(派对一直开到凌晨。)

　　They studied into the wee hours。(他们学习到深夜。)

　　The negotiations lasted into the smallhours (of themorning)。(谈判一直持续到凌晨。)

　　2. Oh, here'ssome

　　antacid. Have you ever triedthis?

　　antacid: asubstancethat gets rid of the burning feeling or pain caused byhaving too much acid  in your stomach,especially when you haveeaten too much, drunk too much alcoholetc 抗酸剂，中和胃酸的药

　　3. And justlike that, thepossibility Susan had clungto,the maybe ofMike Delfino was goneforever。

　　cling to: tocontinue to believe or do something, even though it may not betrueor useful any longer

　　备注："cling to"后面接的宾语常常是"the hope/belief/ideaetc(that)"等等。

　　例：

　　Heclung to the hope that she would be cured。(他仍然相信她的病能治得好。)

　　He'sstill clinging to the idea that his marriage can besaved。(他仍然相信自己的婚姻还没有走到尽头。) 

　　maybe: somethingthat is not knownfor certain

　　"maybe"经常做副词

　　如：

　　"Will you go to the party?"  "I don't know.Maybe."(-你会不会去参加派对？  -还没决定呢！可能会去可能不会去。)

　　Maybe he's slow, but he does verygoodwork。(他做事速度也许算慢的，但是事情都做得很好。)

　　"maybe"还可以做名词

　　例：

　　There are too many maybes (=uncertainties)about thisproject。(这个项目的不确定因素太多了。)

　　4. It didn'ttake Susan longto realize this was not hernight。

　　this was not hernight":

　　直译过来意思是“今夜不属于她”，字幕翻译成“今夜她注定倒霉”，很贴切。

　　与''somebody'snight''类似的用法还有''somebody's/something's day'': a successfulperiodof time in someone's life or in something'sexistence

　　例：

　　Don't be too disappointed you didn't win -your day willcome (= you will be successful in the future ) 。(输了也别太沮丧，你迟早会成功的！)

    Game shows like that have had their day (=were successfulin the past, but are not any more ) 。(那种娱乐节目曾经很流行。)

　　5. Apparently,she left somecandles unattended in theden.The paramedics said she was lucky. She could have beenkilled。

　　unattended: notcared for or watched

　　例：

　　an unattended vehicle(汽车没人看管)

　　Her health problems have gone unattendedfor toolong。(她一直忽视自己的健康问题。)

　　The campfire was left unattended。(营火就这么点着没人管。) 

　　Children should not be left unattended intheplayground。(大人不该把小孩单独留在操场上玩耍。)

　　总结："unattended"可以放在名词前面，也可以接在"go","leave"等动词后面组成短语。