很多小夥伴都想讀英文原著學英語，可每次看兩頁就放棄，從2020年起曉梅老師就帶大家一起讀英文原著，看看有意思的故事，學學地道表達，分析長難句。先從A Short History of Nearly Everything《萬物簡史》開始。這本書從宇宙大爆炸開始講現代科學史，穿插了很多科學家的生平故事，妙趣橫生。本書作者Bill Bryson喜歡用口語化的語言敘述，因而裡面的英語要比一般的原著通俗易懂。今天讀第4章關於一個倒黴的考察隊的片段。
一支倒黴的考察隊
If you had to select the least convivial scientific field trip of all time, you could certainly do worse than the French Royal Academy of Science Peruvian expedition of 1735. Led by a hydrologist named Pierre Bouguer and a soldier mathematician named Charles Marie de La Condamine, it was a party of scientists and adventurers who traveled to Peru with the purpose oftriangulating distances through the Andes. At the time people had lately become infected with a powerful desire to understand the earth - to determine how old it was and how massive, where it hung in space, and how it had come to be.
如果非要選擇有史以來最糟心的科學考察，非1735年法國皇家科學院秘魯探險隊莫屬。這支探險隊由水文學者皮埃爾·布格和軍人數學家查爾斯·瑪麗·德拉·康達明帶領，他們是一群科學家和冒險家，從法國前往秘魯，通過安第斯山脈測量地球。那時，人們對於了解地球產生了強烈的欲望——想要確定它歷史有多久、體積有多大、位置在太空哪裡，以及它是如何形成的。
The French party's goal was to help settle the question of the circumference of the planet by measuring the length ofone degree of meridian (or one-360th of the distane around the planet) along a line reaching from Yarouqui, near Quito, to just beyond Cuenca in what is now Ecuador, a distance of about 320 kilometres.
法國考察隊的目標是確定地球的周長，方法是測量一度經線的長度（地球周長的360分之一），即從（厄瓜多首都）基多附近的Yarouqui到如今的厄瓜多城市昆卡之外的一條線的長度，距離約320公裡。（譯註：有了一度經線的長度，再乘以360就是地球的周長了，所以拿到這個數據就等於知道了地球的大小）
Almost at once, things begin to go wrong, sometimes spectacularly so. In Quito, the visitors somehow provoked the locals and were chased out of townby a mob armed with stones. Soon after, the expedition's doctor was murdered in a misunderstanding over a woman. The botanist became deranged. Others died of fevers and falls. The 3rd most senior member of the party, a man named Jean Godin, run off with a 13-year-old girl and could not be induced to return.
考察剛開始就狀況百出，有時甚至糟得離譜。在基多，考察隊員不知怎麼激怒了當地人，被一群拿著石頭的暴民趕出了城。不久之後，探險隊的醫生因為關於一個女人的誤解而被謀殺。植物學家精神錯亂，有些人則死於發燒和怪病。考察隊三把手讓戈丁(Jean Godin)和一個13歲女孩私奔，沒人能勸他回去。
At one point, the group had to suspend work for eight months while La Condamine rode off to Lima to sort out a problem with their permits. Eventually he and Bouguer stopped speaking and refused to work together.
有一次，這個組織不得不暫停工作8個月，當時康達明騎馬去利馬解決許可證問題。最後，他和布格不再說話，拒絕合作。
Everywhere the dwindling party went it was met with the deepest suspicions from officials who found it difficult to believe that a group of French scientists would travel halfway around the world to measure the world.That made no sense at all. Two and a half centuries later, it still seems a reasonable question. Why didn't the French make their measurements in France and save themselves all the bother and discomfort of their Andean adventure?
這支人數越來越少的隊伍所到之處，都遭到官員們最嚴重的懷疑，他們很難相信一群法國科學家會穿過半個地球來測量這個世界。這完全說不通。兩個半世紀後，這個問題似乎仍然成立。為什麼法國人不在法國測量尺寸，省去他們在安第斯山脈冒險時的麻煩和不適呢？（好奇答案的看這裡https://www.zhihu.com/question/37353504/answer/358142055）
詞彙與短語
1. with the purpose [pps] of，帶著……目的
He came here with the purpose ofcarrying out the attack. 他來這裡的目的是發動進攻。
2. measuring the length of，測量……的長度
Meters can be used tomeasure the length of a house, or the size of a playground. 米可以用來測量房子的長度，或者操場的大小。
3. fever，[fiv(r)]，n. 發燒
I woke up this morning with a fever and an upset stomach. 今天早上我醒來時發燒，胃也不舒服。
4. run off with，私奔
Liz shocked us all by running off witha married man. 莉斯和一個已婚男人私奔，我們都很震驚。
5. make sense 有道理
Why did she do a thing like that? It doesn't seem tomake sense. 她為什麼要做那樣的事?這似乎沒有道理。
長難句分析
Everywhere the dwindling party went [狀語] it [主句主語] was met [主句謂語] with the deepest suspicions from officials who [who引導的定語從句，修飾officials] found it [定語從句的形式賓語] difficult to believe that [that引導定語從句的賓語從句] a group of French scientists would travel halfway around the world to measure the world. 這支人數越來越少的隊伍所到之處，都遭到官員們最嚴重的懷疑，他們很難相信一群法國科學家會穿過半個地球來測量這個世界。
詞彙與短語發音：